MIDDLETOWN — The windy and rainy conditions at Dale Green Field weren’t a good mix for Eastern Hancock’s prolific passing game.
With the Mid-Eastern Conference title on the line, you have to find a way.
The Royals did that Friday night at Shenandoah High School.
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Zach Arnold had two long touchdown runs and Eastern Hancock’s defense made the key stops when it needed to in a 14-12 victory over the Raiders.
“That’s the great thing about football,” Eastern Hancock coach Doug Armstrong said. “It might be 90 degrees or it might be windy and raining, like tonight, but you still have to play. The wind made it not as conducive for passing. The rain wasn’t that huge a factor, but we had to get on the ground and run the football a little more than we usually do and we were able to do it.”
The Royals are 7-1 overall and finish the MEC season with a perfect 3-0 record. Shenandoah had its five-game winning streak snapped. The Raiders are 5-3 overall and 1-1 in league play with a conference game against Monroe Central next week. Eastern Hancock finishes on the road next week at Lapel.
“It’s always one of your goals (to be a conference champion) at the start of the season,” Armstrong added. “You want to play well in the conference and end up with a conference championship. These guys hadn’t experienced that in their careers, so it’s a good accomplishment for them.”
Shenandoah scored on a 43-yard pass play from Tanner Goff to Colton Monday with just 47 seconds remaining in the game, but the Royals defense stuffed the Raiders leading ground-gainer, Josh Farmer, on the two-point try.
It was the last of multiple key stops deep in Royal territory.
Chase Settergren, a senior linebacker who had been a big factor on the defensive side all night, recovered Shenandoah’s onside kick attempt and the Royals ran out the clock.
“We found heart out there,” Settergren said. “That’s what we do. We yell at each other. We’re all a family out there. We argue like a family, everything, but we find our heart and we stopped them on those big plays when we had to.
“Those turnovers were huge. It hyped up the whole sideline and stopped their momentum and gave us a chance to win.”
Shenandoah had a couple of deep drives stopped by fumbles. In the first half, with the Royals up 8-0, the Raiders got to the Royals 5, but Eastern Hancock’s Victor Olivo forced a fumble from quarterback Tanner Goff and Jake Johnson recovered at the EH 3.
In the second half, Shenandoah got to the EH 8, but a bad exchange from quarterback to running back put the ball on the ground and Landon O’Neal recovered at the Royals 10.
The Raiders reached the Royals 12 on their first possession of the fourth quarter. A Tyler Vandervliet sack pushed Shenandoah back to the 25. On the next play, Cayden Sotelo intercepted a Goff pass.
“We made a couple of adjustments. They kept pounding us on their left side, but it was basically fighting and battling play after play against a good football team,” Armstrong said of his defense.
On Eastern Hancock’s second offensive play of the game, Arnold went 51 yards for a touchdown. Quarterback Houston Swan connected with Cole Rainbolt on the two-point conversion to give Eastern Hancock an 8-0 lead with 5:56 left in the first quarter.
Farmer scored on a 3-yard run with 3:20 left until halftime to cut the Royals lead to 8-6, but the two-point conversion failed.
After O’Neal’s fumble recovery, the Royals needed just three plays to score. Arnold followed a 10-yard run with a 77-yard touchdown scoot that made the score 14-6 with 5:12 remaining in the third quarter.
“Zach’s very explosive,” Armstrong said. “When he broke free, we were pretty confident nobody was going to catch him. He really did a good job on a couple of those runs and that won the game for us.
“Hopefully, we can get him loose a lot more as the season progresses.”
Arnold finished the game with 11 carries for 147 yards. Shenandoah’s Farmer had 28 carries for 144.
“We just had to hang on to the football and make every block,” Arnold said. “Our offensive line executed great and lead-blocker Garrett Friesen was able to get to their safety and I could make the cuts. It all worked out.”
Swan came into the game as one of the state’s leaders in passing, averaging 271.3 yards per game. He had thrown for 1,899 yards and 27 touchdowns. With the windy conditions Friday, he was 6-of-12 for 54 yards, but most importantly he and the Royals offense didn’t turn the ball over.
“The biggest key to the game was we didn’t turn the ball over and we got four turnovers,” Armstrong said. “That was the turning point of the game. We were having trouble with their ground game and we just had to keep fighting and battling on defense.”
