Huskey does it all
Goblins RB scores five touchdowns in Harrison rout
Goblins 42, Panthers 7
Just like Harrison’s first two opponents, Siloam Springs didn’t have an answer for Gabe Huskey either.
Huskey accounted for five touchdowns — four rushing and one receiving — and the Goblins shook off an early 7-0 deficit to beat the Panthers 42-7 on Friday in their home opener at Panther Stadium.
The versatile Goblins junior running back rushed 23 times for 158 yards and caught six passes for 59 yards. Meanwhile Harrison forced five Siloam Springs turnovers — including three interceptions from Thailer Lovell — and took advantage of several short fields.
“We have a good football team,” Harrison coach Joel Wells said. “We started off slow. Give Siloam credit. They came out ready to play and stuffed it down our throat a little bit. But I thought our guys came back and recovered and played pretty well there for a while.”
Cam Collins returned the opening kickoff 51 yards for Siloam Springs (1-1) and the Panthers scored on a three-yard run by Kaiden Thrailkill to take a 7-0 lead with 10 minutes, 18 seconds left in the first quarter.
Harrison (3-0) responded with an 80-yard drive that took only 2:18 off the clock to tie the game. Huskey had six carries on that drive for 53 yards, including the 2-yard score to tie the game with 8:00 left.
Harrison scored three times in the second quarter to take a 28-7 lead.
Huskey ran for a 14-yard score for a 14-7 lead, and after a Siloam Springs lost a fumble on a punt, he ran for 24 yards.
With 2:44 left before halftime, Huskey hauled in a 39-yard touchdown pass from Ben Johnson.
Brooks Both had a 5-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and Huskey had a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth with 2:45 left to enforce the sportsmanship rule.
“We got off to a great start. Our kids were ready to play,” said first-year Siloam Springs coach Brandon Craig. “We were facing a great opponent. Like I told them, I’m glad we got to play them because they exposed us in some spots. It will refocus us and give us a chance to use it as a teaching tool for conference play.”
Harrison finished with 292 yards on offense, including 203 on the ground.
Huskey — who had 207 rushing yards and 298 receiving yards coming into the game in blowout wins against Pea Ridge and Mountain Home — accounted for 217 of those yards.
Wells credited the Goblins’ offensive line to doing a good job creating opportunities to Huskey.
“You know we’ve got a lot of guys blocking up there and doing some things,” Wells said. “We’ve not played (Huskey) on defense so he can carry the load like that. He’s an excellent player. We also did some nice blocking for him.”
Craig said Huskey was as good as advertised.
“You know all I could go off is the film, and he was outstanding on film, and he was outstanding in person,” Huskey said.
Craig said the Goblins’ offensive line played well, but the Panthers didn’t help themselves at times.
“I thought we did some things that put ourselves in a bad position as far just not getting off blocks up front,” Craig said. “We got reached a couple of times when we shouldn’t have gotten reached. Put our linebackers in some tough spots. That’s stuff we can clean up and fix from the standpoint of doing a better job in practice and making sure those things aren’t happening. It’s hard to get a look like that because they are a very good offensive line. We just have to get better, and that’s just what it comes down to is getting better each week.”
The Goblins’ defense held the Panthers to 182 total yards. Thrailkill led Siloam Springs with 29 carries for 147 yards.
A particular struggle was the Panthers’ passing game, held to 6 of 19 passing for 38 yards and four interceptions.
“We put ourselves in some bad positions and helped a good football team beat us,” Craig said. “We can’t do that. We can’t make those kind of mistakes and expect to have a chance to win games. We’re just not that football team.”
The Panthers tried to jump start their offense several times, converting one fake punt and failing on another.
“This was a nonconference game,” he said. “As much as we want to win every game, this game doesn’t count toward us going to the playoffs, so we want to use it in the right way so that we can learn from it, get better and get ready for those conference games.”
Siloam Springs will play its final nonconference game at Van Buren this Friday. Van Buren lost 46-21 to Fort Smith Northside this past Friday.