COVINGTON — The Fountain Central Covington rivalry runs deep. Two schools separated by just 11 miles. This season the two schools decided to make the rivalry a little more special. This past week the two teams got together for what was called a sportsmanship night hosted by the Trojans to inaugurate the game as the battle for the golden helmet. Due to the ongoing referee shortage across the state, both teams had to wait until Saturday night to do battle. Once both teams took the field, Fountain Central dominated the game for the opening drive on their way to a 43-6 win to secure a win over their rival and bring home the golden helmet to Veedersburg.
It took the Mustangs (3-1, 2-0 WRC) just one minute and forty seconds to score the games first touchdown. Freshman QB Eli Foxworthy found Nolan Acton for 29 yard TD to make it 7-0.
Covington got their only score of the game when Kaden Smith, who got the start at QB for the injured Wyatt Monciref, scored on a 23 yard run up the middle.
King who has been on both sides of the FC Covington rivalry talked about what the game means to both teams.
“There’s all kinds of these cross-county things going on with both teams,” King said. “Everyone knows everybody and I thought tonight the game was played very clean between two schools that have a lot of respect for each other. Having that sportsmanship meal earlier this week really helped both teams understand how your supposed to behave in a football game.”
Back out on the field the Mustangs were very balanced offensively. Foxworthy went 15-26 for 228 yards and four touchdowns. The other three TD’s for the freshman were to senior Isaac Gayler who hauled in scores of 10, 39, and 12. On the ground FC ran for 131 yards with Owen Acton having 88 and Dawson Blue 43. Blue also hauled in six passes for 95 yards.
Covington (2-2, 0-2 WRC) mustered just 110 total yards of offense. Smith was 7-17 for 49 yards and was the leading with 16 carries for just 35 yards. Cian Moore ran for 28 yards on eight carries.
After the game, Gayler noted how the Mustangs want to show the rest of the WRC that they mean business.
“I think this game was a statement game for us,” the senior wideout said. “We want teams to know we mean business every time we step out on that field. I think this team is a lot better than most people are giving us credit for . It’s also a really good motivator for us to just keep pushing forward. We’ve got a difficult few games coming up and that will really determine our season.”
Those games that Gayler is referring too include three straight weeks where FC will take on Seeger, North Vermillion, and South Vermillion. All three of those game were losses for the Mustangs a year ago. Before those games, the Mustangs will host Attica (0-4, 0-2 WRC) next week for homecoming.
“I was proud of our offense for continuing to push forward even when we were ahead,” King concluded. “The last few weeks when we’ve been ahead we’ve just kind of coasted. We continued to move the football and finished off more drives than the previous week. Our kids know what lies ahead with the schedule, but all I can ask right now of our kids is that they continue to get better the next couple of weeks and I think they will.”
