CHARLOTTESVILLE — No team has been able to stop the offense of the Eastern Hancock Royals football team all season, and it wasn’t a team that slowed them down Friday.
It was Mother Nature.
The Royals fell 8-0 to the Milan Indians in a rain-battered slugfest at Eastern Hancock High School, when both the field and the offenses got messy quickly.
Almost the entire first quarter was spent in a box of the field between Eastern Hancock’s 20- and 40- yard lines, with both teams running the ball up the middle on snap after snap. With each play, the field became more treacherous as rainwater began to pool on the field and divots began to get deeper and deeper, causing several ball carriers to slip and fall untouched throughout the early stages of the game. Both quarterbacks struggled to hang onto their snaps out of the shotgun.
“I’ve taken 10 snaps under center in 23 years of coaching, I’m not gonna change that,” Eastern Hancock head coach Pat Echeverria said.
As the first quarter came to a close, the Royals finally found a spark bright enough to flip the field in the form of a 45-yard pass down the right sideline from quarterback Elijah Edon to receiver Eli Manship, finally escaping the treacherous area of the field that had slowed down the game throughout the first 11 minutes. As soon as the team thought it was out of the mud, though, Eastern Hancock was thrust right back into it as the teams switched sides to start the second quarter.
The Royals were quickly stopped and forced to punt from there, but a snap was mishandled by Milan QB Wyatt Marsh to end the Indians’ next drive prematurely.
After a series of runs by Edon, running back Evan Wheeler and wide receiver Garrett Shaw, the Royals were set up with first and goal from the Milan 5.
Wheeler ran for no gain and Edon threw back-to-back incomplete passes to set up fourth down, at which point Eastern Hancock sent out its field goal unit for what seemed like a chip shot. In these conditions, though, nothing was routine, and kicker John Rodriguez-LeMasters missed the uprights, kicking the ball low and wide right.
While Milan was able to move the ball at the end of the half, burning two timeouts early in the half cost the visiting team as the teams returned to the locker room at halftime with the score still tied 0-0.
Milan came out of the locker room on a mission, though, receiving the opening kick and storming down the field, dominating the line of scrimmage as it ran the ball with ease through the Royals’ defense and into the end zone, scoring the touchdown on a direct snap jet sweep to Cameron Gilb that the Eastern Hancock sideline felt constituted an illegal snap. No flag was thrown, though, and after Marsh punched in the two-point conversion, the Royals trailed 8-0.
“They move the ball all the way down the field, kind of a ‘Milan drive’ and, you know, it’s gonna be a one score game tonight and they were the ones that executed on their drive,” Echeverria said.
The Royals mounted another drive deep into Milan territory as Edon found receiver Austin Brown for a 17-yard strike over the middle, but a handoff to Wheeler slipped out of the running back’s hands and was recovered by the defense.
Eastern Hancock seemed to have a chance to get the ball back with good field position as Milan lined up to go for it on fourth-and-two, but a pooch punt caught the Royals by surprise, and with nobody back to return, it was downed on the Eastern 10.
The Royals were never able to get the ball back out of their own half of the field, and as a hook-and-ladder play was unsuccessful and the ball plopped into the mud, the final whistle blew as the Royals were shut out, falling to 3-3 on the season. Milan improved to 4-2.
Eastern Hancock will go on the road next week for its next Mid-Eastern Conference matchup as it travels to Monroe Central, where the Royals will look to stay undefeated in conference play.
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Milan 8, Eastern Hancock 0
Milan (4-2);0;0;8;0; — ;8
Eastern Hancock (3-3);0;0;0;0; —;0
Scoring Summary
3rd Quarter
M — Cameron Gilb 8 run (Wyatt Marsh run)
