FORTVILLE — Early fireworks, big plays by both sides, and a matchup decided late in the fourth quarter for the second straight year.
The showdown between Class 4A Mt. Vernon (1-1) and Class 5A Franklin Community (1-1) lived up to the hype on a hot, sticky Friday night at Mt. Vernon High School.
The Marauders outlasted the Grizzly Cubs 41-38.
“We knew they were going to be a very tough opponent. They had a great win in Week 1. We’ve had good battles the last three years against them, so we knew what we were getting into,” Mt. Vernon head coach Vince Lidy said. “We started off with a bang, got run over, and they traded a few blows. We just outlasted them at the end and made enough plays.”
It took just 13 seconds for Mt. Vernon to get things started, with Tre Jones taking the opening kickoff back for the immediate score. A Luke Ertel pass to Jones on the conversion made it 8-0, more points than the Grizzly Cubs gave up all of last week in a 42-3 win over New Albany.
Franklin answered with a 12-play, 80-yard scoring drive to cut the deficit to one. Seventy-seven of the 80 yards came on the ground, capped off by an Alex Leugers’ 1-yard touchdown.
A matchup between a team that loves to run the ball, and a team that struggled to stop the run in week one, went about as expected in that area of the game.
After giving up 405 yards on the ground in last week’s loss to Noblesville, the Marauders were exposed on the ground again.
The 77 yards on the opening drive was the beginning of a 296-yard rushing performance by the Grizzly Cubs.
Four of Franklin’s five touchdowns came on runs, including all of their second-half scores.
“I don’t think we were ever in full control. There were periods where we ran the ball well and periods where they ran it well,” Franklin head coach Chris Coll said. “It was just a good football game. We made some plays, they made some plays, it was just a good game on both sides.”
Leugers finished with 158 yards and three touchdowns, and quarterback Clay Pinnick added 113 yards and a score.
“He’s [Pinnick] been that way for three years,” Coll said. “He’s fast and a good runner. They put a lot of pressure on us in the box, so you get an extra blocker by running the quarterback.”
But when the Marauders needed to stop the run, they did. They held Franklin to just three fourth-quarter yards.
Offensively, the Marauders run game might not have put up the yards that Franklin did, but they were nearly as good when they needed to be.
Four of the five Mt. Vernon scores came on the ground, and on the night they ran for 162 yards.
Joliba Brogan accounted for 155 of those yards and two of the scores.
The lone passing touchdown for either team came in the closing seconds of the first half when Pinnick found Quentin Richards on a 14-yard strike with just 12 seconds left to give the Grizzly Cubs a 17-15 halftime lead.
Leugers and Pinnick big touchdown runs, of 68 and 34 yards respectively, helped Franklin outscore the Marauders 21-11 in the third quarter and led to them grabbing a 38-26 lead entering the fourth quarter.
An Ertel 7-yard option keeper cut the Marauder deficit to four, and a Brogan 10-yard run gave the Marauders the lead late.
In a game with 79 points scored it was a defensive play deciding the game.
With just under five minutes remaining, Pinnick fumbled the snap, and Mt. Vernon recovered. A Gabe Grinyar run on fourth and one picked up the game-winning first down.
The run was the same that Grinyar scored on earlier in the night, and something Mt. Vernon practiced all week.
“I was upset by our lack of physicality on the offensive line last week. We can’t just line up and maul people yet,” Lidy said. “We were physical at the point of attack tonight though. We repped that play that Gabe scored on all week. We were just trying to promote getting off quick on the football.”
–
Mt. Vernon 41, Franklin 38
Franklin (1-1);7;10;21;0; —;38
Mt. Vernon (1-1);8;7;11;15; — ;41
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter
MV – Tre Jones kick return (Jones pass from Luke Ertel), 11:47
F – Alex Leugers 1 run (JD Sever kick), 6:38
2nd Quarter
F – Sever 29 FG, 5:51
MV – Joliba Brogan 15 run (Rylan Vinard kick), 4:52
F – Quentin Richards 14 pass from Clay Pinnick (Sever kick), :12
3rd Quarter
MV – Gabe Grinyer 1 run (Ertel run), 9:01
F – Pinnick 34 run (Sever kick), 7:13
F – Alex Leugers 1 run (Sever kick), 4:30
MV – Vinard 34 FG, 3:02
F – Leugers 68 run (Sever kick), 1:47
4th Quarter
MV – Ertel 7 run (Tyler Etherington pass from Ertel), 11:13
MV – Brogan 10 run (Vinard kick), 5:45
