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Indians sink commodores for first win

9/23/2016

By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor

On a beautiful moonlit night, high on a mountaintop in Eastern Kentucky, the Montgomery County Indians rewarded Coach Jamie Egli and his coaching staff with its initial win Friday night.

The Indians used a dominating ground game and dominating defense to sink the Commodores of Perry County Central 44-6 to earn their initial win of the 2016 campaign.

With that milestone accomplished the Indians will now get ready to test their metal against a Pulaski Southwestern team that pounded the Tribe 55-29 a year ago at Somerset and will come in sporting a 3-2 record this go around.

PCC takes lead
Friday night’s game at Hazard took on the look of some earlier Montgomery County games this season in the opening minutes.

The Indians kicked off, held the opposition to three plays and out and got the ball on their 28 but promptly lost a fumble that led to a 20-yard, six play scoring drive by the Commodores that culminated on a five-yard scoring pass from Jacob Sluss to Rylan Eddington as Perry Central took a 6-0 lead. Senior end Keeton Blackford blocked the extra point attempt.

The drive
of the night
The Indians, however, were anything but unnerved by the early turnover as they turned right around and put together their best drive of the season, marching 71 yards in 18 plays and taking 9:10 off the clock to claim an 8-6 lead.

Senior running back Jake Harvey was back in the line-up for the Indians and scored the first of what would be three touchdowns on the night from three yards out.

Harvey did most of the damage on that drive, carrying the football 14 times for 53 of the yards. Freshman Charles Collins ran for a two-point conversion and the Indians had the lead for good.

Pass interference
The Tribe added to their lead on their next possession with a 63-yard drive that was aided by a pass interference call against the Commodores and a 37-yard run by Harvey.

Although Dillon Akers, getting his initial start at quarterback, completed just one of three passes in the game, he had Trent Toy wide open for what would have been a gain of at least 35 yards and maybe 60 yards and a touchdown when the defensive back simply ran over Toy to prevent the completion.

The drive ended on Harvey’s one yard run and another two-point conversion run by Collins made it 16-6.

Defense scores
The game was still nip and tuck in the final minute of the first half when Sluss completed a 16-yard pass down to the Indians’ 17 yard line to Noah Back with :08.9 to play in the half.

Then Sluss went back to pass, was hit and fumbled the football and senior end Jordan Breeze picked up the ball and rambled 73 yards for a TD, scoring with less than a second to play in the half.
That gave the Indians a 22-6 halftime lead when the Indians failed to convert on a two-point conversion attempt.

All downhill
The second half was all downhill for the Indians as they scored on their second and third opportunities to put the game out of reach.
Akers’ 15-yard punt return set up a 28-yard scoring run by Harvey to stretch the lead to 30-6.

Then the Indians marched 68 yards in just four plays with Collins ripping off a 26-yard run and Akers scoring from 32 yards away on a naked bootleg around left end.

Montgomery County scored on another two-point conversion with sophomore Pharoah Davis making a spectacular catch on the backline of the end zone.

Collins wraps up scoring
Collins, a speedy freshman, provided a highlight moment just into the final quarter.

On the first play of a series that began at the Montgomery County 10 yard line, Collins raced through the line and ended up 90 yards away in the end zone on a run that included him breaking a tackle at the Perry Central 40 yard line.

That run gave Collins 134 yards in just six carries on the night as he joined Jake Harvey (154 yards on 25 attempts) in their biggest rushing night of the season.

Taking a knee
Rather than add any more points the Indians took a knee on the conversion try and then with a running clock the game ended rather quickly.

Perry Central moved the ball between the 40s on their final drive and then the Indians time for just a couple of rushing plays with junior Cameron Dunaway breaking free on a 24-yard run.

Defense shines
Perry County Central sophomore Jayden Neace, a 6-2, 200-pound tailback, entered the game as one of the state’s leading rushers.
Neace had carried 121 times for 730 yards and nine touchdowns through the first four games for the Commodores.

But the Indians held him to just 67 yards on 22 attempts, about 115 yards below his per-game average.

Junior Jacob Woolum entered the game averaging 123 yards per game but left the game in the second period after carrying the football five times for 24 yards.

The Commodores also lost junior lineman Sam Turner, a towering 6-9, 310 pound tackle who played both ways, to an arm injury early in the second half.

Game Notes
MCHS senior defensive end Jordan Breeze is certainly not slow afoot for a defensive lineman but he may not be quite as fast as the appeared based on the clock Friday night at Perry County Central.

There were 8.9 seconds showing on the clock when the Commodores went to the line of scrimmage to run a play from the Montgomery County 16 yard line.

The quarterback dropped back, got hit and fumbled the football and Breeze scooped it up and ran 73 yards for a touchdown that came with 0.7 seconds left in the half.

Assuming it took two seconds for the quarterback to drop back several yards, get hit and fumble the football and for Breeze to recover (that would be pretty quick) then the 6-3, 250 pound Breeze covered 73 yards in 6.2 seconds.

That would translate into running the 100 yard dash in 8.43 seconds which would have every track coach in America, including the Olympic track and field association being at this Friday night’s game just to watch Jordan run.

Of course, gett