Williams runs Cards past Vilonia 36-27

Farmington senior scores four times

FARMINGTON — Caleb Williams rushed for more than 200 yards and four touchdowns to power Farmington to a 36-27 win against Vilonia at Allen Holland Stadium on Friday.

The senior tailback finished with 25 carries for 203 yards in helping the Cardinals snap a two-game losing skid. They improve to 3-4 overall and, more importantly, 2-2 in 5A-West play.

“Getting back to 50 percent in conference makes a huge impact for us,” Williams said. “It’s a statement for Farmington as a school that, even coming up to 5A, that we can play with these guys and come back from the losses and prove ourselves as a team.”

Williams was running without one best blockers as offensive lineman Sam Stevens watched from the sidelines with a knee injury. Junior Chuck Carlson, who’s 6-foot-1, 330-pounds, filled in for Stevens and helped Williams score on runs of 18, 12, 16 and 52 yards.

Williams’ final two touchdowns came in a span of 62 seconds to help Farmington take control in the fourth quarter.

“I thought it was crucial to see if any of our back-up linemen stepped up,” Williams said. “And Chuck Carlson was definitely able to do just that and helped make it happen for our offense.”

Vilonia (0-7, 0-4) made it interesting after Farmington needed just four offensive plays to grab a 15-0 lead. Following a defensive stand, Williams side-stepped defenders on his way to a 18-yard touchdown run. Quarterback Trey Waggle, who was 8 of 14 for 150 yards, hooked up with Drew Sturgeon on a 59-yard touchdown pass to account for the Cardinals quick-strike scoring.

A roughing the punter penalty kept Vilonia’s first scoring drive alive as quarterback Jordan Britton capped off a 16-play, 72-yard drive with the first of his three touchdown runs to cut the deficit to 15-6 at halftime.

“Vilonia has improved; they changed some things on us,” said Farmington coach Mike Adams. “They changed some things on us and gave us some things we haven’t seen, but our guys did a good job of adjusting and we did a much better job of tackling. That’s was a key for us and we got some people on the ground.”

Another touchdown run by Britton, this one from 34-yards out, made it 15-13, but Farmington answered with 21 unanswered points to pull away.

“We still have execution issues we need to clear up,” Adams said. “We had a couple of things like a silly motion penalty that cost us a first down and a couple of other things like that, or we could have really put the game away, but we couldn’t get it done.”

“Getting back to 50 percent in conference makes a huge impact for us. It’s a statement for Farmington as a school that, even coming up to 5A, that we can play with these guys and come back from the losses and prove ourselves as a team.” — Caleb Williams