Longhorns dismantle Falcons
Harmony was sloppy and inconsistent at times but hardly struggled on the road Friday while wrapping up its second district win of the season.
The Longhorns (4-1, 2-0), ranked No. 15 in the Sentinel Super 16, jumped on East River (3-2, 1-1) early by scoring 17 points in the opening quarter and rolling to a 37-7 win.
Harmony scored on its first two possessions, then blocked a punt for a touchdown to amass the insurmountable lead. The toughest stretch for the Longhorns came when they turned the ball over once on downs and twice on interceptions in the second quarter.
“One week we play real well and another week we play down. It’s just something we’ve got to get better at,” Harmony coach Don Simon said. “We’re trying to get them to understand that it’s got to be a four-quarter thing from start to finish, and if we can take care of that we can go pretty deep.”
With the Falcons set to punt while backed against their own end zone, Harmony’s Ryan Carroll pushed his way into the backfield to make the block.
Trey Hayes came up with the loose ball for the touchdown. He later returned a fumble 55 yards for a touchdown with less than a minute to play for the final score of the night.
Juan Gomez was in on two of Harmony’s four sacks.
The teams combined for three interceptions and three turnover-on-downs in the second quarter before East River got to within 17-7 on a 1-yard plunge by Bryan Sanders in the third.
The lone scoring drive for the Falcons was set up when Sanders rumbled 52 yards to put the team in the red zone. Justin Gleason rushed for two touchdowns for Harmony, including a 29-yarder late in the third quarter that separated the Longhorns for good at 23-7.
Gleason finished with 101 yards on 22 carries. He scored Harmony’s first touchdown on a 1-yard run.
Harmony quarterback Nate Herstich, who was sacked three times and picked off twice, finished 10 of 21 passing for 132 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed 11 times for 62 yards, most of which came in the second half.
“I was just making some errors and making bad throws,” Herstich said of the second quarter.
“But after that we looked better in the end. We’re getting a little more comfortable with ourselves every week and if we can start clicking we can be doing a little better than we are right now.”