When they quit beating themselves, with three turnovers in the first half and four in the game, the Leslie County Eagles found success by giving the football to senior tailback Dalton Maggard.
Maggard ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns as part of a 220-yard night on the ground for the Eagles in a 25-8 win Friday at Harlan.
“People are kind of misled and think they are a big throwing team, but they’re not right now. They lost two great receivers,” Harlan coach Eric Perry said of the Eagles. “We knew we had to slow down their running game, He hurt us a couple of times and took advantage of our linebackers taking some bad angles. He’s a good player, and they have some good kids up front. Their running game is pretty good. We have to live with it. We’ll come back Monday and go back to work.”
Harlan grabbed the momentum on the game’s opening play as Tayquan Vick recovered an onside kick to set up a nine-play scoring drive. Senior quarterback Donovan Montanaro found Conner Daniels for a 29-yard gain early in the drive, then Montanaro teamed with tight end Hunter Clem for a 3-yard TD pass with 6:40 to play in the opening period. Darius Akal’s two-point conversion run put the Dragons up 8-0.
Maggard and Dalton Baker each had big runs as the Eagles quickly answered in a drive capped by Maggard’s 6-yard touchdown run with 4:51 to play in the period.
Leslie lost fumbles on its next two possessions, the second when quarterback Landry Collett tried to reach the ball across the pylon for a score only to fumble out of the back of the end zone for a touchback to end the threat.
“We definitely shot ourselves in the foot with all those turnovers,” Leslie County coach Eddie Melton said. “We started the game with the onside kick. They made the play on it and went down and scored, but we settled in and battled. It’s always a battle when we play Harlan. They have a lot of athletes, but we pulled it together and played well enough to win.”
Perry said the Dragons missed too many opportunities after the Eagles’ mistakes.
“We created some turnovers, and I thought we moved the ball. We just didn’t finish,” Perry said. “I know (defensive coordinator) Jerry (Perry) is upset about the defense, but I thought they played hard. Our young linebackers got picked on a little bit. Down the road, we’ll be talking about those guys as our strength, but we’re going through some growing pains. We just had some missed opportunities. We ran the ball a little better,”
The Harlan defense had perhaps its biggest breakdown of the night with Leslie facing a third-and-goal situation from the 28 when Collett weaved his way to a touchdown. Nate Montanaro dropped Collett on the two-point attempt, but the Eagles led 12-8 with 6:33 to play in the half.
Maggard had a couple of big runs on the next series before Collett went 13 yards around the left side for a touchdown with 41 seconds to play in the half, pushing the lead to 18-6.
After a scoreless third quarter, Harlan went on a time-consuming 14-play drive featuring several runs by Akal, who finished with 100 yards on 26 carries. The threat ended when Jayden Hacker picked off a Montanaro pass at the 20 and returned it 78 yards to the Harlan 2 before he was caught by Montanaro. Maggard scored on the next play, then Jesse Osborne added the extra point to close the scoring with 2:03 left in the game.
“Being able to put the ball in (Maggard’s) hands in the second half and eat up some clock was big for us,” Melton said. “We’re trying to establish more of a physical mentality offensively, and I feel we’re getting there. We’re becoming more physical and it’s rolling over to our defense.”
Harlan (1-3) returns to action Friday at home against Johnson County, Tenn.,in the first game between the two schools. The 3-1 Eagles travel to Clay County on Friday.
