GREENTOWN — Trailing 21-0 to the Oak Hill Golden Eagles with :16 left in the first quarter Friday night, it looked like more of the same for the Eastern Comets, who failed to win a game all last season.
Then a 45-yard kickoff return by Joel Hoover provided the spark the Comets needed to show the promise that the large home crowd had come to witness. Oak Hill went on to win 35-7, but Eastern had something to build with.
Following Hoover’s flashy runback, Eastern put together a 7-play, 52-yard drive for a much-needed touchdown. Sophomore quarterback Jon Keith closed the deal with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Dakota Swisher.
That fired up the Comets’ defense. After scoring easily on its first three possessions, Oak Hill suddenly found positive yards hard to come by. On their three possessions of the second quarter the Golden Eagles gained just 48 yards, and 15 of those came via a penalty on the Comets.
“I am very proud of our guys,” first-year Comets’ coach Josh Edwards said. “Really what happened in the second quarter was we got a big play, then the kids started believing in themselves and some of our offensive schemes started to work. They were bigger than us, and every team we play this year will be, but we realized we could play with them.”
Hoover rushed for 23 yards and caught two passes for 27 more. The junior tailback had another big kick return early in the fourth quarter, good for 41 yards, but that was about the only offense the Comets could muster after halftime. Eastern had just 28 yards of total offense in the second half.
“I think fatigue set in in the second half,” Edwards explained. “Size won out. They came out in the third quarter and just played smash-mouth football. And our offense bogged down, putting our defense in a tough spot most of the second half. You can’t blame the defense, they never gave up.”
Great field position in the third quarter allowed the Golden Eagles to score twice more. Oak Hill started three third-quarter drives from their 42, and from the 44 and 16 on Eastern’s side of the field.
Fullbacks Ben Heincker (5-foot-9, 170 pounds) and Toby Miller (6-0, 210) punished the Comets for 66 and 49 yards respectively, each scoring a touchdown.
Quarterback Adam Middlesworth added 45 more yards on the ground, and a pair of rushing touchdowns for Oak Hill. Middlesworth connected on 4 of 12 pass attempts for 75 yards and one score.
Edwards promised a more wide-open passing game, and the Comets delivered. Keith passed the ball 22 times, connecting on nine for 92 yards. His stats could have been much better, if not for a number of dropped passes.
“We made some silly penalties, and dropped some passes. That’s to be expected in the first game for a young team,” Edwards said. Eastern has just five seniors. “As we go along, we’ll eliminate those errors.”
Evan Eikenberry also caught a pair of passes for 22 yards, and Caleb Gibson showed some big-play ability when he snagged a pass from Keith and scrambled for 18 yards.
Eastern travels to Madison-Grant Friday looking for a little more improvement on their way back to football respectability in the Mid-Indiana Conference.
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