Parks defends his place; Blue Lions defeat Indians WATCH THE FOOTBALL ROUNDUP
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
WASHINGTON C.H. — Before the start of the season, Washington Blue Lions' senior running back Ben Parks said he wanted to live up to the standard of his jersey number (31) worn by Blue Lion legend Carl Smith.
On Friday, Sept. 24 at Gardner Park, Parks achieved that goal.
Parks unofficially rushed for 270 yards on the ground, most coming in the second half, as the Blue Lions defeated the Hillsboro Indians, 41-12 for their second straight South Central Ohio League win.
Though it was a team win for the Blue Lions, Parks dominated the second half with touchdown runs of 24, 35, 30 and 33 yards. In the first half, Parks unofficially had 89 yards, including a first down run of 25 yards.
Of the four touchdown scores, the one that was the best of the best came in the fourth quarter with 10:24 remaining, taking all the air out of Hillsboro.
Parks didn't just break one or two tackles, but went by six Hillsboro defenders, zig-zagging and bull-rushing 30 yards for the score. The TD at the time made the score 28-12.
"Ben broke a lot of runs. He's just an incredible athlete," Washington head coach Corey Dye said. "He's a guy whose motor never stops, and teams have to have almost three guys to bring him down."
Blocking on the offensive line for the big runs by Parks were Jacob Parks, Jerome Pettiford, Winston Mickle, Cameron Shaw and Aaron Buck.
"In the first half we didn't play well as a unit," Dye said. "We challenged them at halftime and they accepted the challenge. I'm proud of the offensive and defensive lines."
As for the Indians, the outcome of the game didn't go as planned. HHS (0-2, 1-4) played a tough first half but wore out in the final 24 minutes, struggling in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
"On both sides of the ball, we didn't play well up front," Hillsboro head coach Brian Spicer said. "No execution in the second half, and as a team, we must get mentally tougher."
Spicer said his team was also worn out physically and it's not going to get any easier since they don't have depth.
"Guys not getting rest won't change for us," he said. "We have to get tougher. We were worn out, and it comes down to how we play physically and how we play mentally."
Back to the Blue Lions and their game plan Friday night. Improving to 5-0 overall and 2-0 in the SCOL didn't start out like the final 29-point victory read on the scoreboard after the final second ticked off the clock.
In fact, the game was close at halftime with Washington leading 7-6 after the first two quarters.
It was the Blue Lions who scored first, and it wasn't via a running play, but through the air when Collin Farmer found Patrick Wilson for 13 yards in the middle of the end zone for six points. The PAT by Luke Mesker gave WSHS a 7-0 lead with 6:14 left in the second quarter.
The first scoring drive by Washington went 63 yards, with Parks driving WSHS on runs of 6, 25, 9 and 12 yards.
Three drives later, it was time for the Indians to shine, scoring their lone first-half touchdown late in the second quarter.
HHS gained possession of the ball on an interception by Kaleb West, on a halfback pass.
The scoring drive by the Indians started off with a flag but quickly turned into one of the better marches down the field for the Indians with a 12-yard catch from Aric Carroll to Christian Wildey. The big play of the drive was a 37-yard connection when Carroll found Dow Kiefer wide-open near the Washington 11-yard line. After a couple of bumps in the drive where the Indians had a fumble, a couple flags, and an incomplete pass, the Tribe regained all those yards back on a pass interference call on a third-and-39 for an automatic first down.
Then the Indians went to work.
Carroll passed to Chase Gilliland for 7 yards, and on second-and-10, later in the drive, Gilliland caught another pass, this one for a 33 yard gain, back to the Washington 11-yard line. On third-and-11 Gilliland was clutch, once again, when he caught an 11-yard touchdown score on a slant up the middle for six points, leaving 21.1 left in the first half. The PAT was no good, leaving HHS down by one.
HHS regained possession of the ball after Jorden Stratton recovered a fumble by the Blue Lions with 10.9 seconds left in the second.
The first half ended on a 25-yard catch by Matt Gallimore.
Then came the second half for both the Blue Lions and the Indians, as each team went in different directions.
After forcing HHS to punt in their opening drive of the third quarter, where they punted from their own 7-yard line, it took Washington just one play to reach pay dirt. The score came on a 24-yard run where Parks barreled through the HHS defense and broke loose for a score with 9:31 left in the quarter. Mesker made the score 14-6 with the PAT.
Hillsboro's final TD didn't come on offense or defense, but from the special teams when Kordell Ford, a freshman, went 85 yards on a kickoff return. HHS was unable to break the plane in the end zone on a 2-point conversion try.
After HHS answered the score of the Blue Lions, Washington came back with their second touchdown in the quarter with Parks finding a crease in the trenches and running up the Blue Lion sideline 35 yards to the end zone.
The final two Blue Lion scores came on a 20-yard reception by Wilson with 8:34 left in the game, followed with Parks going 33 yards up the middle with 2:37 left in the fourth quarter.
"Parks is a good running back, but like I said before, we were just worn out at the end," Spicer said. "'How do you bottle up a player like him so well like we did in the first half, but not do it in the second half?' It's not like they did anything differently, we were just worn out."
The win puts Washington at 5-0 overall (the first time since 2001) and 2-0 in the SCOL. HHS drops to 1-4 overall, 0-2 in the SCOL.
Washington will host the McClain Tigers next Friday and HHS will travel to Zanesville in their final non-league and third straight road game.
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