Prep Football: Eagles deliever knockout blow at Fairfield
At the 8:30 mark in the fourth quarter, a train came down the track at Fairfield's "Train Yard"
It paled in comparison to the train that ran all night long coming in the form of Trey Vessel, who rushed for 134 yards on 19 carries and scored three touchdowns in Eldorado's 34-8 win over unbeaten Fairfield Friday night.
With the loss, the Mules are now 7-1, joining Eldorado at 7-1 in the Black Diamond Conference.
The win for Eldorado likely means the BDC crown is up for grabs next Friday when the Eagles play host to Johnston City.
Eldorado punished Fairfield with a solid running game as Peyton Price was silver bullet himself, going for 167 yards on 58 carries and the Eagles finished the night with 322 yards of total offense, all coming via the ground attack.
"That team (Fairfield) is such a hard opponent to play offensively and I felt like we took them out of what they wanted to do and we were more physical than them up front," EHS head coach Brandon Hampton said. "They came out in the second half and tried to spread us out and force us to do different things, but our kids adjusted on the fly and I felt like our offense really dictated the flow of the football game. We were able to convert some fourth downs early in the football game. We held onto the football and with their defense, that's tough to do."
The defense was just as special as the offense for Eldorado, limiting the Mules to just two first down conversions late into the second half and kept Fairfield's three-headed monster running attack of Wyatt Borah, Brant McGill and Devon Butler at bay as the three combined for 95 yards on 32 carries.
After rolling the dice early in the game and going for on fourth down a couple of occasions, Jacob Traxler got into the end zone from one yard out, giving Eldorado a 6-0 lead.
Later in the second quarter, Vessel scored the first of three TD's on the night, bulldozing his way in from two yards to give the Eagles a 14-0 first half lead.
Later in the third, Vessel scored twice, both coming from two yards out as the Eagles built a 28-0 lead.
Price put the cherry on the sundae when he broke off a 58 harder with 9:59 to play in the fourth, giving the Eagles the 34-0 lead.
Fairfield would find the end zone late in the game as Macklin Snyder hooked up with Dylan Heifner from eight yards out to prevent the shut out.
Hampton added that the talk this week was that Friday was going to be a heavyweight fight and he was proud of his kids for never flinching and continued to throw punches.
"We knew our kids were going to play well and they accepted the challenge of playing a really good Fairfield team. (Fairfield) is undefeated for the first time since 1994 and it was a championship type game and our kids gave a championship type performance. We talked all week about it being a heavyweight fight, but we never flinched. We kept throwing punches, kept standing in there toe-to-toe with a good football team and came out with a win."
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register and Eldorado Daily Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
Eldorado 06 08 14 06 - 34
Fairfield 00 00 00 08 - 08
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
ELD - Traxler 1 run (conversion failed), 5:27
Second Quarter
ELD - Vessel 2 run (Price conversion), 3:26
Third Quarter
ELD - Vessel 2 run (conversion failed), 6:08
ELD - Vessel 2 run (Price conversion), :5
Fourth Quarter
ELD - Price 58 run (conversion failed), 9:59
FF - Heifner 8 pass from Snyder (Heifner conversion), :37
Team Statistics
ELD FF
First Downs 11 14
Total Yards 322 196
Rushes-Yards 46-322 60-144
Comp-Att-Int 0-1-0 6-16-2
Passing Yards 0 52
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 1-0
Penalties-Yards 1-5 2-10
Individual Statistics
Rushing: ELD - Vessel 19-131, Price 17-167, Traxler 8-16, Metten 2-2, Roberts 2-6. FF - Borah 9-25, McGill 14-34, Butler 9-31, Hooper 2-17, Stewart 3-28, Heifner 3-24, Snyder 2-(-16).
Passing: ELD - Oglesby 0-1-0 0. FF - Snyder 6-16-2 52.
Receiving: FF - Lewis 4-40, McGill 1-4, Heifner 1-8.