Wide receiver Ryan Sherman made it look easy Friday. The senior had four touchdowns on the night: two in the air and two on the ground. Above he scores his second of the night on a 23-yard reception from quarterback Dalton LeNoir.

The Fayette Falcons won their first game of the season 33-15 Friday night over Knox County at Central Methodist University’s Davis Field. The opening-night victory is the first in seven years for Fayette and a first for fourth-year head coach Billy Huthman.

“I’ve been waiting four years to win the first game and it finally happened,” Huthman said.

“It’s a great day to be a Falcon.”

In fact, the last time Fayette won its opener was in 2001 with a 25-6 win at Knox County.

The Falcons set the pace right from the start. On the first play from scrimmage, senior running back Ryan Sherman got loose on a 65-yard sprint to the endzone for the first score of the season.

“We wanted to get out and score quickly and get the momentum in our direction,” Sherman said. And that’s just what he did.

When Fayette and Knox County met during the CMU football camp in June, Sherman was not on the field. And Huthman didn’t show much at the preseason jamboree Aug. 23. “That’s one of the things we didn’t show in our jamboree. We never showed it at camp.”

Sherman’s speed and success on the gridiron is certainly no secret, but teams still have little success in efforts to contain him.

“He’s just fun to watch,” said Huthman. “And with the surrounding blocks on that play, everyone did their job. It wasn’t just him. He had some great blocks downfield from the receivers and the backs. And the line did a great job of sealing everything up in the middle. You have to have everybody almost perfect to make plays like that.”

And that was just the first 15 seconds. Sherman would score three times more as the Falcons posted five touchdowns on the night. For their second, Sherman hauled in a pass from 23-yards out from junior quarterback Dalton LeNoir with 8:29 on the clock to go up 12-0.

But just two and a half minutes later, the momentum would shift. An incomplete pass from LeNoir bounced off the turf and into the hands of an Eagle defender. All five referees concluded the play ended in an interception. So with a short field of just 14 yards, Knox County drove the ball toward the goal line before senior running back Lucas Hudson ran it in from four yards out for the touchdown.

“You can bite and scream all you want, but they aren’t going to change the call,” said Huthman.

Fayette would once again make it a two-score game before the end of the half. With less than two minutes left in the second quarter, Sherman struck again from long yardage, this time on a 43-yard blast which ended in a 10-yard trot into the endzone. A two-point conversion by junior full back Ethan Boulden made the score 20-7.

Even with time running down, Fayette managed to get one more possession. On the final play of the second quarter, LeNoir put an exclamation point on the first half when he hit junior wide receiver Logan Ball from 31 yards out for a touchdown at the buzzer. The two-point conversion failed, but Fayette cruised into halftime with a 26-7 lead.

“I wanted to take it to them,” Huthman said. “I thought we were better athletically and faster with our backs. After we got that run going and made them commit to the inside, we went with our pass, and our receivers did a great job.”

Following an action-packed first half, the third quarter was quite the change of pace. Knox County erased nearly the first eight minutes off the clock with a long drive.
Fayette finally stopped the Eagle push when senior linemen Matt Pritchard and JaQuan Jones broke through the line and pulled down Knox County quarterback Keenan Gillaspy for a sack on a four-and-five situation.

But Fayette offense sputtered, and four plays later Knox County regained possession. The Eagles posted 17 plays to Fayette’s four in the third quarter.

The Eagles reached pay dirt for their second and final score of the night with 7:02 left in the game. Hudson one again took it in from short yardage with a one-yard run. The two-point conversion on a keeper by Gillaspy was good and cut the lead to 26-15.

Knox County came dangerously close to making a late rally. But with 5:15 left on the clock Boulden scooped up an Eagle fumble just 17 yards from the goal line. Fayette had another brush with luck to clinch the win. With 3:11 on the board, Knox County bobbled a Fayette punt. Falcon junior Boone Priddy recovered the loose ball on the Eagle 34-yard line.

Fayette didn’t squander the opportunity. With 1:41 left to play, LeNoir threw his third touchdown of the night as he hit Sherman from 27 yards out.

Sherman’s point-after attempt was good to give Fayette the 33-15 win.

“He had a fantastic game,” Huthman said.

Sherman racked up 137 of the team’s 159 rushing yards on eight carries for two touchdowns. “You never know with Sherm,” Huthman said. “Sometimes I just take my eye off him and look at my play book to decide the next play. I hear people cheering and it’s like ‘OK, there he goes again.’”

Sherman also had two catches, each of which were for touchdowns. He spanned 50 yards with both grabs.

Boulden racked up 28 yards on six carries and senior Keyton Schweighauser picked up five more to round out the ground attack.

Leading the receivers was junior Logan Ball with three catches for 71 yards and a touchdown. Juniors Mikey Thompson, Rodney Felten and Boulden each had one reception.

“But we have a corps of receivers that do a great job for us. And it showed tonight,” said Huthman. “Teams have to cover everybody.”

LeNoir in his first varsity game since being named starting quarterback completed eight of 21 passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns with two interceptions.

“He’s a general out there,” said Huthman. “He knows everything. Even when we do our last play to kneel on it, I always take a timeout to make sure everybody is lined up right. He told me to stay on the sideline and he’d line it up.”

Huthman said his presence on the field gives the Falcons more balance on offense. “That’s what we want. We want a balanced attack. That’s what Dalton brings to the table. We have a quarterback who can throw and the runners who can run.”

LeNoir battled through the entire second half and part of the second quarter with sore ribs which made deep breathing difficult. “I was supposed to roll out,” he explained. “Some linebackers got through and got a helmet on my ribs.” That shot caused his second interception of the night in the second quarter.

Defensively, returning tackling leader Boulden led three Falcons in double figures with 13 take downs (3 solo) and a fumble recovery. Fellow inside linebacker Schweighauser had 11 stops (5 solo) and junior Boone Priddy had 11 tackles (3 solo) with a recovered fumble. Sherman and Thompson each had seven total tackles and five unassisted. Senior JaQuan Jones added six total (2 solo) while Logan Ball had five (4 solo) and Alex Hilderbrand tallied five assists. Pritchard, at nose guard, managed four tackles (1 solo) and a fumble recovery after leaving the game in the fourth quarter with a sprained right knee.

Fayette was to head to Tipton to take on the third-ranked Cardinals on Friday. Huthman said that ranking doesn’t intimidate his team whatsoever. “I don’t even pay attention to that. I’ve seen them a little bit on film. I saw their jamboree. I think our offense can do a lot of things against their defense. Offensively, they are fast. They run the heck out of it and do a lot of play action. It’s a good program. They don’t rebuild, they reload. They return four starters on offense and four on defense. They graduated a lot of kids.

“We have to play our football and dictate to them.”

LeNoir summed it up simply. “We beat them in camp.”
Kickoff Friday is at 7 p.m.

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