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Harrisburg wins key conference and district battle, 30-20 over Fayette

By Jeff Yoder
Posted 10/10/20

Harrisburg was faced with fourth-and-3 just inside the Fayette 20-yard line for the final play of the third quarter. Protecting a ten-point lead, the Bulldogs went back to the …

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Harrisburg wins key conference and district battle, 30-20 over Fayette

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Harrisburg was faced with fourth-and-3 just inside the Fayette 20-yard line for the final play of the third quarter. Protecting a ten-point lead, the Bulldogs went back to the basics.

“It’s not tricky plays at that point, it’s our basic plays,” Harrisburg coach Steve Hopkins said.

“If we can execute our basic plays against that front, then that really feels good.”

Gavin Curtis churned out six yards and moved the chains. Four plays later, Tanner Lanes found Justus Whitaker in the endzone to give Harrisburg a 24-6 lead.

Wyatt Robinson’s third touchdown of the day came on a 33-yard run as Harrisburg went on to a 30-20 win, the Bulldogs’ first victory over Fayette on the gridiron.

“It’s pretty crazy, just the tension between the two schools,” Robinson said.

“Usually it doesn’t seem like much, because they’ve in the past have always dominated.

“The culture that we’re developing here, it really shows that what we’re doing is working.”

Harrisburg took advantage of great field position to take an 8-0 lead with a three-play 39-yard drive.

On third-and-2, Robinson broke a tackle near the line of scrimmage and saw nothing but 30 yards of open grass between himself and the endzone.

Less than two minutes later, Robinson intercepted a tipped pass and returned it 45 yards for a touchdown to put the Bulldogs ahead 16-0 with 2:02 left in the first quarter.

“For a few plays we were over-rotating and they were hitting it,” Robinson said. “I just went out to make the tackle and it just bounced right off of his pads into my hands. There was nothing special that I did, it was just being there at the right time.“

Fayette responded by driving the ball to the Harrisburg six. The Falcons faced just one third down (of third-and-one) while moving the ball inside the ten, but penalties killed the drive. A block in the back moved the ball back 13 yards to the 19. A lineman downfield took a perfect touchdown pass from Ben Wells to Zach Henderson off the scoreboard. The first half would end without Fayette scoring a point.

“I think coach Brimer hit the nail on the head before the game and after,” Fayette coach Mike Thompson said. “It’s the small details that we’re not paying close enough attention to. The little details. It’s in every phase and every thing. It’s practice, it’s before games, it’s during the school day.

“It’s all the time that we’re not paying close enough attention to the details and its costing us games that we shouldn’t be losing, costing us plays that we should be making.”

Fayette had 23 first downs, while Harrisburg had nine. It was the third time this season that Fayette had outgained its opponent by at least 100 yards in a loss by double digits.

The Falcons got on the scoreboard with 4:12 left in the third quarter on a 27-yard pass from Ben Wells to Dillan Lembke.  

Harrisburg ate up six minutes of clock on the next possession, a 58-yard drive.

“We were not going to give them the ball back if we could help it,” Hopkins said. “We worked all week on four-minute offense.”

The Bulldogs converted a third-and-12 with a halfback pass from Robinson to Jace Carr.

“So yeah, we had to have a break or two like that,” Hopkins said. “But when it came down to the end, we had to run dive, iso, and off-tackle and that’s what we were able to do.”

Whitaker caught the five-yard touchdown pass on fourth down. He finished with three catches for 35 yards.

“It’s a basic bootleg pass,” Hopkins said. “Justus is just a perfect example of a program kid. There are other guys out there with more talent, but he may be one of the smartest kids in our school and he applies it to football. When you explain to him, if you aim under this linebacker and over that linebacker and you do it this way… he just eats it up. He was as wide open as you could be.”

The Lanes to Carr 2-point connection was successful for a third straight time. Carr was limited to just 28 receiving yards by Zach Henderson and the Fayette defense, but he caught three critical 2-point passes.

“On our four (touchdowns), we made three two-point conversions, which is equal to another touchdown,” Hopkins explained. “If we don’t that, and they make their three two-point conversions, the game is tied.

“That’s why we work really hard on situations… We really said, here’s what we’re going to run, we know this is what we’re going to run. Execute. And they did a great job.”

Garren Vroman scored on a seven-yard carry with 6:35 left and bulldozed his way into the endzone for the 2-point conversion to cut the lead to 24-14. Vroman had 102 rushing yards on 19 carries.

The Falcons recovered a fumble on the ensuing drive, but were unable to move the ball from midfield.

Robinson broke free down the sideline for a 33-yard touchdown with 1:49 left.

“We talked about it before the game, big players have got to make big plays,” Hopkins said. “And Wyatt Robinson is one of our biggest players and he made a big play more than one time.”

Robinson finished with 127 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries.

Both Fayette and Harrisburg have dealt with injuries and unavailable players this year. Austin Darwent stepped up for the Bulldog defense on Friday, moving from cornerback to safety to fill a vacated role.

He recovered a fumble, broke up two passes and had eight tackles

“We really worked as a team to really team-tackle this week,” Darwent said. “We really worked hard in practice and had a good practice. We were just mentally here.”

Kevin Raines led the defense with nine tackles and Robinson had eight.

“We felt like there were certain players that we didn’t want to let beat us,” Hopkins said. “And those players were our focus and then we asked our linemen to do what they were supposed to do.

“They have to occupy blockers and let our level-two guys go make all the tackles. And everybody will cheer those level two guys, but if our d-linemen do their jobs, they may only get two or three tackles a game, but they are the bedrock of what we do defensively.”

Brayton Stephenson finished with five tackles. Tyler Bartholomew led the Falcon defense with eight tackles and Lembke made seven.

Wells found Henderson for a 49-yard touchdown late in the game, but Fayette was unable to get the critical 2-point conversion to make it a one-score game.

Wells finished 21-42 for 203 yards and two touchdowns. Henderson had eight catches for 113 yards and a touchdown.

Harrisburg (5-2) will be on the road the next two weeks for games at Scotland County (2-5) and Marceline (6-1).

Fayette (3-4) will look to bounce back with a home game against Salisbury (0-7) before traveling to Knox County (2-5).  

“If we can do a better job of paying attention to the details, we still have two more games before the real season starts for us,” Thompson said. “We have time to get all the details worked out and become a better detail-oriented, disciplined football team. And if we do that, we’ve got a good chance to make a run. If we don’t, we’re going to make an early exit.”

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