SNEEDVILLE, TENN. — On the opening night of the 2023 season Friday at Hancock County, Tenn., the Harlan Green Dragons experienced the good, the bad and the ugly of football in a 46-6 rout of the host Indians.
Hancock County was playing its first varsity football game since 2020 and was clearly no match for a Harlan team coming off an 8-4 mark last fall. The Dragons rolled up 318 rushing yards with senior quarterback Donovan Montanaro scoring three times on 136 yards and junior tailback Darius Akal adding two scores on 108 yards in three quarters of action.
“We didn’t play very well,” Harlan coach Eric Perry said. “The defense didn’t bother because we had so many inexperienced guys out there. I was more disappointed in our offense the first half. I thought we played a little better the second half. I did like that in the second half we showed some life and showed some energy and played a little. I thought Donovan played well and our linemen did a good job of picking up some of their blitzes. We made couple of plays on defense.”
But even with the dominating performance in its running game and an even more impressive effort on defense, the Dragons did plenty wrong with 14 penalties for 150 yards, including eight personal fouls and two costly ejections. The Dragons lost junior tight end/defensive end Hunter Clem in the third quarter while Montanaro reportedly went out midway through the fourth during an apparent altercation on the Hancock County sideline. Both players will have to sit out the Dragons’ next two games.
“I was more disappointed with all the silly fouls than anything else and getting kids kicked out of the game. That will really hurt us the next two weeks,” Perry said. “It was my mistake for ever coming over here. We did some silly things, but I think some of it was provoked.”
Harlan ran 10 plays on an opening drive that was derailed by a pair of procedure penalties inside the Hancock 20. But after forcing a three-and-out, the Dragons wasted little time as Sedrick Washington ran 28 yards to set up Akal’s 4-yard touchdown run. Jeremiah Madden’s two-point conversion made the score 8-0 with one minute left in the opening period.
Montanaro had runs of 30 and 12 yards on the Dragons’ first drive of the second quarter before scoring on an 8-yard run with 6:08 left in the half.
Another long run by Washington set up Akal again for a score as he went in from the 7 with three minutes left in the half. Akal added the two-point conversion for a 22-0 lead.
Chandler Parson and Joshua Collins each had big gains to help set up Hancock’s only score of the night, a 1-yard run by Eli Jones with 15.7 seconds left. The Dragons helped Hancock in the drive with several penalties. Nate Montanaro had an interception on the two-point conversion attempt.
The second half was dominated by big plays and penalties.
Akal broke free for a 51-yard run with 8:48 left in the third quarter, then Donovan Montanaro added the two-point conversion for a 30-6 lead. Donovan Montanaro started a running clock 12 seconds later with his 50-yard interception return for.a score. Dylan Cox, playing in his first high school football game, added the two-point conversion on a 20-yard run after one of the many Harlan personal foul penalties in the half.
The final 12 minutes crept by despite the running clock as the officials stopped the clock with penalties and lengthy midfield meetings after scuffles, The game was finally stopped midway through the final quarter after an incident on the Hancock sideline that resulted in Montanaro’s ejection, only a few plays after his 57-yard run on fourth down and a two-point conversion closed the scoring.
Harlan will play host to Clay County on Friday.