SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 – COVINGTON
Covington coach Austin Morgan stood in the east end zone with his hands on his hips searching for the words to describe his team’s effort while looking at the scoreboard that read 44-0 in favor of Troy Christian.
Quietly Morgan said, “Embarrassing. There’s really no other way to describe it.”
Many times the numbers don’t tell the entire story, but in this game the numbers didn’t lie.
Everyone and their brother knew Troy Christian’s strategy was to control the game by running the football and that’s exactly what the Eagles did – churning out 229 of their 323 total yards of offense on the ground.
Meanwhile, Covington managed just 102 yards rushing and negative one yard passing for 101 totals yards.
The Eagles scored on every possession but two and even kneeled the ball instead of attempting to kick an extra point after their final touchdown with 8:02 left in the game.
In all, it was an uninspiring effort by Covington – totally different than the effort given in the first three outings against St. Henry, Mechanicsburg and Fort Loramie.
“There was little fight tonight,” Morgan said. “We are banged up with injuries, but you still have to fight. We didn’t fight tonight.”
Covington entered the game with senior Ricky Stephan on the sideline and then lost three more seniors during the game due to injuries – Jensen Wagoner, Connor Sindelir and Landon LaPoint.
As unfortunate as the injuries are, football is a next man up game because the other team won’t feel sorry for you.
And even with the injuries Covington had the horses up front to make a contest of it, but failed to execute.
“Our execution was horrible,” Morgan explained. “Our line wasn’t taking the right steps and we are four weeks into the season. Our backers were not reading the guards and we go over that every day in practice. It was a total lack of execution.”
Covington looked like a team who had turned the corner on its opening drive of the game as it moved the ball deep into Troy Christian territory.
Unfortunately a penalty and a quarterback sack put the Buccaneers behind the chains and the drive stalled near the Eagle twenty on a failed fourth down conversion attempt.
Troy Christian then drove 78 yards on its first possession by running the ball through the heart of the Covington defense and capped the effort with a four-yard run by Landon Rich.
Shortly thereafter Connor Sindelir was forced to leave the game with an injury and the wheels fell off for the Buccaneers as Troy Christian scored on each one of its first half possessions to build a 24-0 halftime lead.
Things went from bad to worse on the opening play of the second half as the Covington special teams unit failed to hold contain on the edge and Gavin Blore took advantage for an 85-yard kickoff return to push the lead to 31-0.
The remainder of the game was played with a running clock, but Troy Christian was still able to tack on two more scores for a 44-0 win.
And at the end of the day, instead of taking a positive step forward, the Buccaneers took a huge step back.
“We are back to day one,” Morgan stated. “It’s on us, the coaches. We need to reassess what we are doing to get these kids prepared. We are making way too many mistakes at this point of the season and it all starts with coaching.”
It was a very tough night for Covington as it drops to 0-4 for the first time since the 1991 season.
The Buccaneers have little time to lick their wounds as it prepares for a showdown at Bethel next Friday.
And you can bet the Bees won’t feel sorry for Covington – regardless of the injuries.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
BUCCS – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 = 0
EAGLES – 7 – 17 – 14 – 6 = 44
SCORING SUMMARY:
TC: Landon Rich 4yd run (Hunter Williams Kick)
TC: Lee Burkett 1yd run (Hunter Williams Kick)
TC: Landon Rich 12yd run (Hunter Williams Kick)
TC: Hunter Williams 21yd Field Goal
TC: Gavin Blore 85yd Kick Return (Hunter Williams Kick)
TC: Lee Burkett 1yd run (Hunter Williams Kick)
TC: Jonathan Haddad 15yd run (Hunter Williams Kick)
