..
..Click here to see a video from Shorter's game Saturday against LaGrange. Click here to see a photo gallery of Saturday's game.
For the second week in a row, the Shorter College Hawks pulled ahead 14-0 in the first quarter Saturday.
This time, however, they made it stick.
After a 27-24 loss to Division II Stillman last Saturday, Shorter put on a showcase for its home opener, exploding for 448 yards of offense and defeating LaGrange 38-12 at Barron Stadium.
“Maybe the biggest thing about this game was to get back on the winning track and feel like our football team took a step forward today,” Hawks coach Phil Jones said.
Shorter (2-1) rolled up 373 yards on the ground with fullback A.J. Cooley leading the way with 79 yards and a touchdown. Three other Hawks ran for 40 yards or more.
The victory gave the Hawks bragging rights in the
Shorter quarterback Drew Elrod eludes LaGrange defender Alex Sapp on the way to a 5-yard touchdown run in the second quarter Saturday at Barron Stadium. William T. Martin / Rome News-Tribune |
in-state rivalry and the right to hold on to the Governor’s Cup in its inaugural year.
“This is neat situation for two in-state schools to play and to make a big deal out of it at the small college level, I think, is a fantastic idea and I hope we can continue it,” LaGrange coach Todd Mooney said.
LaGrange (0-3) was limited to just 40 yards of offense and one first down in the opening two quarters while getting six points on an 89 yard kickoff return by Mario Wallace.
The Panthers tacked on 217 more yards in the second half thanks to an adjustment in th
Shorter’s Armond Smith scoops up a fumble during the first half of Saturday’s game against LaGrange. William T. Martin / Rome News-Tribune |
eir passing game but were unable to overcome Shorter’s lead.
“My hats off to Shorter,” Mooney said. “Coach Jones runs a class program. They play hard, they execute and they do the little things right.”
“It’s a great feeling to win our first home game,” Jones said. “The game got a little sloppy at the end but I thought in the entire first half we played really hard.”
Taking the opening kickoff, Shorter constructed a steady drive down the field that took 7:41 off of the clock and ended with Cooley diving into the end zone from a yard out.
Lukas Gonzalez made his first of five extra points and the Hawks were ahead 7-0 with 7:19 remaining in the first quarter.
“That was real important because that’s what we try to establish,” Jones said.
“It kind of got us into our rhythm and what we like to do on offense. We gained some confidence by doing that.”
Shorter’s second drive was kept alive when Gonzalez scrambled on fourth-and-three on a botched punt to give the Hawks a new set of downs.
It also gave them the opportunity to score three plays later when quarterback Drew Elrod took the ball on a 29-yard touchdown run.
It was his first of two scoring plays of the game as the former Adairsville standout carried the ball in from five yards out in the second quarter after Shorter recovered a LaGrange fumble on a kickoff return.
“We really wanted to come out here and make a statement, especially on offense,” Elrod said.
“We felt like if we did the things we needed to do up front, we would be pretty tough to stop.”
Elrod suffered a hip pointer at Stillman last week and was limited in practice until Wednesday.
But the Hawks’ new starting quarterback looked fit on Saturday.
“To get him reestablished was important to us,” Jones said.
The junior transfer kept his offense going in the second quarter on their fourth drive of the game when he converted a third-and-16 situation with a 17-yard pass to Fabian Daniel.
Raymone Nesbitt capped off the effort with a seven-yard run with 6:01 to go in the half. Gonzalez tacked on a 37-yard field goal with 3.9 seconds left.
While the offense was on call for the first half, it was Shorter’s defense that was put to work in the second.
Shorter’s final score came less than three minutes into the third quarter when A.J. Baker intercepted a LaGrange pass on the Hawks’ 41 and returned it for a touchdown.
The Panthers put together their only successful drive of the game in the fourth quarter when backup quarterback Robert Walsh completed a string of passes that concluded with a five-yard scoring strike to Erik Hardison.
“Our players went after it and that’s what we intended, just to not be satisfied but to continue to play,” Jones said. “We’ve got to play a whole game and we came closer to that today.
“We’re going to enjoy this and get back to work and get ready to go.”
Shorter begins its Mid-South Conference schedule next Saturday when the Hawks visit Campbellsville University for a 1:30 p.m. kickoff.
|
No Related links found
|
