For the Daily Reporter
CHARLOTTESVILLE — The Eastern Hancock and Wes-Del match up Friday night may have been littered with turnovers and penalties but the Royals scratched out a 14-8 victory with the help of an experienced offensive and defensive line.
That experience came in clutch during the last Wes-Del Warrior drive. Wes-Del was driving off their momentum in their previous go around where they drove 94-yards in six minutes ending with a touchdown and two-point conversion.
They were back at it again when they started on the Royals 32-yard line after one of a few fumble recoveries. These two drives showed a completely different Warrior offense than the first half. But the defensive line had their sights set on Warrior Mason Whitted.
A 24-yard run was followed by a 15-yard run to set the Warrior offense up within 30-yards of the endzone. Royals Tyler Vandervliet and Conner Knudson had enough. One sack turned into two sacks, which turned into a bad snap and a third sack, totaling 30 lost yards and a lost game for the Warriors.
“Our strength is in our offensive and defensive lines,” Eastern Hancock head coach Doug Armstrong said. “Those are the older kids. They’ve came through for us in clutch moments.”
The line had its moments earlier in the game as well. Vandervliet came through with a big sac in the start of the third quarter halting Wes-Del’s momentum out of the half. In the first half, the Royal defense gave up no yards. In fact, Wes-Del was in the negative for total yards in the first half. Their first first down was in the second half.
The offensive line coupled with a trio of running backs to push through 223 yards on 53 carries. Jacob Johnson led the charge with 101 yards, Victor Olivo followed with 85 yards and Garrett Friesen collected 37.
“Right now, we’re a running team,” Armstrong said. “We’re trying to progress with our young players as we go. Victor and Jacob have ran well for us two weeks in a row. We were not able to bust a big run tonight but we were consistently running 5 or 6-yard runs.”
The Royals scored in their first and second to last drive of the first half.
Olivo ran for 30 of the 47-yard drive that ended with a passing touchdown to Blayze Sarber to start the game strong. In the last two minutes of the half, the Royals drove 40 yards chalk full of penalties, referee confusion and general mayhem. But in the end, Johnson busted the last yard to make the score 14-0.
The Royals recovered an onside kick and took three passing downs in the last 18 seconds of the half, but couldn’t score.
Eastern Hancock was once again plagued with turnovers. There were two fumbled turnovers and a few recovered fumbles as well, along with an interception.
“Fumbles are our critical issue that is going to bite us if we don’t figure out the solution,” Armstrong said. “I’m a field position, no turnover, no penalty type of coach and right now we’re giving the ball to the opponent way too often.”
Despite the turnovers, the Royal offense finished with 251 yards and their second victory of the year. They move to 2-0 on the season and 1-0 in the Mid-Eastern Conference.
The Royals face Fountain Central next Friday in their third straight home game.
