Leopards Crush Royals with Two-Headed Rushing Attack

On Friday night, the Hernando Leopards (1-1) dominated the Hollins Royals (0-2) at home. By essentially every metric, the Purple and Gold pounced all over the visitors to the tune of a 54-6 victory. The Royals would capitalize on an early first quarter mistake by Hernando, but everything that followed would play out in the home team’s favor.

“Once we got through that miscue on offense, they scored and we held them on that two-point conversion, offense got the ball back and the offensive line just took control of the game,” said Leopards Head Coach John Scargle. “Just down blocking, kicking out, open holes for [Sophomore RB] Jeremiah Brown and [Senior WR] Gabe Sansone. They’ve been working on that all week to perfect it, but they’ve been grinding since the middle of the summer and that’s what we were hoping for.”

Perfect it they did. After Hernando’s fumbled handoff was returned for a touchdown on the third play from scrimmage, the Royals failed to convert their two-point attempt and wasted a pair of timeouts in the process. It was all Leopards from here on out. The home team would end every subsequent drive with a touchdown, and they would not allow a single point to be scored on their defense.

Now down 6-0, their next drive started in plus territory at the Royals’ 35 thanks to a personal foul penalty by the visitors. This was a common theme throughout the night as Coach Scargle’s squad would consistently start in far better field position.

Many drives only required a play or two for the home team to be on the right side of midfield. Starting their drive with an extremely short field led to a quick two-play drive with one handoff each to Brown (21 yards) and Sansone (14 yards, touchdown) as they took the lead for good. The visitors would not threaten even threaten to score again until the fourth quarter when the game was over, and a running clock had been imposed.

After Coach Jason Stokes’ Royals turned the ball over on downs near midfield, the Leopards got back to work with another speedy possession. Three runs totaling 52 yards, all by Brown, resulted in an easy touchdown as the sophomore followed his blockers to pay dirt. Players in the trenches rarely get enough love despite how crucial their roles are, but they were road graters on Friday night.

Leopards Linemen:
Junior OL/DL Rafael Betancourt
Sophomore OL/DL Zach Bryant
Senior OL/DL Noah Brown
Senior OL/DL Isaiah Daniels
Sophomore OL/DL Aris Nieves
Senior OL/DL Greyson Volberg
Junior OL/DL Nick Carter
Junior OL/DL Wiley Blair
Senior OL/DL Jakobe Kortor
Junior OL/DL Evan Richards
Sophomore OL/DL Jerry Roberts
Junior OL/DL Lukas Ohmie

Hernando would put the game out of reach in the second frame as they rattled off four touchdowns on drives of 5, 4, 5 and 0 plays (pick six). Brown, Sansone, and Junior QB Michael Saltsman would each find the endzone two times throughout the game and the sophomore running back would eclipse 100 yards rushing in a dominant performance. The defense would also force a pair of turnovers (fumble, pick six), both in the second quarter, and both led to points.

The win was punctuated when, on the final play of the game, backup QB Ryan Browning lofted up a pass to a wide-open Kamoni Dotson who sped down the field for a 96-yard touchdown as time expired. The Leopards’ coach had not intended that to happen. He was just trying to get a play in with his backups when the opportunity presented itself to the freshman quarterback.

“We were going to play him the whole fourth quarter, but with the running clock, we just had a tough time getting him in,” Scargle said. “We had a lot of young guys on defense, so we couldn’t get their offense off the field. So, we got him in for one play and we just let him sling it. It was his one play, and it just connected. I apologized to their coach. I don’t like doing that when we’re up big. He understood and we were just trying to get the young guys some work.”

Hernando will continue to mix up the running and passing in the offense moving forward, but Coach Scargle especially wants to work on tackling. They missed “too many” tackles against the Royals and a higher profile squad will make the Leopards pay if they do so again. The Purple and Gold will also look for similar production in the ground game against Crystal River in two weeks. They will host the Pirates on September 13 at 7:30.