Falcons overcome slow start to best improving Chiefs

LANTANA — After the first quarter, Santaluces seemed poised to make a run at knocking off Forest Hill.

Despite early flubs that included a botched punt and a lost fumble, the Chiefs had outgained the Falcons, 53 yards to minus-3 yards. But in the second quarter, Forest Hill stopped its offensive woes and Santaluces couldn’t stop its mistakes, eventually falling 27-0 at home Friday night.

Hanging around with the Falcons was the latest sign for Santaluces coach Brian Coe that his squad is making “tremendous improvement” since finishing 2-7 last season.

He said the score wasn’t indicative of his team’s effort Friday, when “a couple plays here and there” sank chances to stay close. The Santaluces offense lost two fumbles and quarterback Tyler Kintz threw a long interception to Forest Hill’s Tyrell Coleman as the Chiefs were making positive gains on offense.

“(Our) defense played really well,” Coe said. “Offensively, we made too many mistakes.”

The Chiefs’ defensive effort wasn’t lost on Forest Hill coach Jude Blessington, who said “they’re hard to block.”

His offense eventually broke free to finish the game with 299 yards. Blessington credited the Falcons’ offensive line for making spaces for his backs to run later in the game.

“Our backs are good,” Blessington said. “We got bodies on bodies to start the second half and that kind of turned the game for us there.”

With 99 rushing yards on 12 carries, Bry’yon Jones led the Forest Hill ground attack. Jones finished with two rushing touchdowns.

Often running out of the option, quarterback Darius McClendon added another 70 yards on the ground. He also completed a 44-yard pass to Deshon Sirmans that set up Jones’ first touchdown run.

Chaz Eaton and Anthony Horne added touchdown runs of 4 and 46 yards, respectively.

But Blessington said his defense was key in Friday’s win. He was happy with how the unit continued to play well even when the offense sputtered early in the game.

“Hats off to our defense ... (for) not getting frustrated when the offense wasn’t clicking,” he said. “They played very, very hard.”