It was a tale of two halves for the Lancaster football team in their season opener against visiting Hilliard Darby, with the Golden Gales falling 21-14 in a heartbreaking loss.
Lancaster's defense was impressive in the first half, shutting out the Panthers to take a 9-0 halftime lead. The Gales' offense was capped by a Gunnar Bell 28-yard field goal with 4:07 left in the first quarter, and Jahmeir Gordon scored on a dazzling 12-yard touchdown run later in the half to give Lancaster a 9-0 lead.
However, the Gales' inability to move the ball with consistency in the second half proved to be their downfall. Darby scored on its first two offensive possessions of the second half, and the Panthers went on to rattle off 20 unanswered points.
"We didn't execute when we needed to execute," Lancaster coach Jeremy McKinney said. "We were punting the ball when we should have been picking up first downs. How you win games like that is you maintain offensive possessions. You don't give them the ball back because they eat the clock."
The Gales kept fighting and scored with 3:40 remaining to cut the margin to a one-score game, but it wasn't enough as the Panthers hung on for a 21-14 nonconference victory on Friday, August 21 at Fulton Field.
Lancaster's defense came up huge late in the first half after Darby drove to the Gales' 26-yard line, with sophomore Landon Burke intercepting a pass to kill the drive. The Gales' offense struggled to move the ball in the second half, and Darby took advantage with short-yard touchdown runs.
Gordon finished with 60 yards rushing on 13 carries and caught three passes for 39 yards; Brody Broeckel completed 9-of-15 passes for 95 yards and rushed for 37 yards on nine carries. Jackson Utt added 20 yards on four carries, and Kellen Knoch caught four passes for 33 yards.
Lancaster will be on the road for the next three weeks, with their next game scheduled for August 28 at Delaware Hayes. The Gales will look to bounce back from this loss and get back on track.
The glaring stat in the game was that Darby ran 59 offensive plays compared to just 41 for the Gales. This lack of consistency on offense ultimately led to the Gales' downfall.
Lancaster coach Jeremy McKinney said, "This is going to be a process, and we are building. We have guys in the locker room that can play, and it's just a matter of all of us executing at the same time when we needed to."
Source: Yahoo Sports