Halftime adjustments were all the difference in Crawfordsville’s 21-14 football win over Fountain Central.
After the Mustangs had scored on their first two drives, long, time-consuming affairs, it looked like the adjustments they made from a Week 1 loss were paying off.
The Athenians had punted and turned the ball over on downs. They did manage a touchdown with a minute left in the half to get on the scoreboard.
The game did a 180 in the second half, however, as Crawfordsville scored on their first two possessions to take the lead.
Their defense also made the adjustments that kept FC off the board.
The Mustangs fall to 0-2 on the season, while Crawfordsville moves to 2-0, the second season in the last three that the Athenians have started 2-0.
“We have just a great staff,” Athenians coach Brad Clark said. “Defensive coordinator Matt Reynolds and Offensive Coordinator Sean Gerold made some really good adjustments. We also did a much better job executing the game plan and changes.”
Offensively, the changes came in the passing game for the home team.
“We went to more play-action,” Clark said. “Mason (McCarty) found the open guys, but like I said earlier, we executed so much better.”
McCarty’s second TD pass of the game came on that play-action, on a 62-yard pass and throw to Landon Gerold.
Crawfordsville had just taken possession on downs, on a dropped pass on fourth down.
McCarty rolled right, faked the handoff, which the Athenians had run many times.
The junior found a wide open Gerold, and the sophomore, who does happen to be the son of the offensive coordinator mentioned earlier, made the most of his first varsity catch.
He broke a tackle or two, and out-ran a couple other defenders from the middle of the field to the end zone. Dylan Wolcott’s third extra point kick gave the Athenians the seven-point lead as they took their first lead of the contest.
McCarty also had a 52-yard TD pass to Braeden Hites, the first Cville score of the game. He finished 6-of-7 passing for 146 yards, to go with his team-best 52 rush yards.
The third Crawfordsville score came on a Maddox Ronco 24-yard run in third quarter. It was Ronco’s second carry of the season, and again was a misdirection play that worked.
In total, the Athenians had five plays of 20-plus yards and scored on three of those long plays. Defensively, they held the Mustangs without a single 20-plus play.
After trailing until late in the third quarter, the home team turned to the defense.
“First of all, hats off to Fountain Central,” Clark said. “We played well defensively last week, and we were so much better on our assignments in the second half today. It was better execution defensively, and we were so much better on our assignments in the second half. To be honest, we were a little lazy in the first half, but really picked up the adjustments in the second.”
The Mustangs jumped out to the early lead on the arm and legs of their sophomore quarterback Eli Foxworthy.
Leading his team on a 15-play and then a 16-play drive, Foxworthy used a combination of running and passing to keep drives going. They converted on fourth down four times in four tries.
Foxworthy found Noah Dodson from two yards out for the first TD, and then hit Noah Acton from four yards away.
He had to leave the game with cramps early in the third quarter, and the Mustangs were not able to muster any points in his absence, and when he returned in the fourth, was sacked and had a pass dropped.
Acton filled in behind center, and led his squad on a run-filled drive, and his only pass attempt on fourth down was also dropped. The long pass to Gerold followed on the very next play.
“Acton would have been the guy in the pattern in that fourth-down play,” FC coach Herb King said. “Sometimes it comes down to who is in the game. We are young up front, be we got a lot better from last week to this week. We just weren’t good enough today. We gave up over 300 rush yards last week (in the loss to Southmont) and we kept Crawfordvsille from running a lot. We made them do something different, and to their credit, they passed well. We had three big errors, but we did a lot of good things today. We need more improvement but we’ll get it. From last week to this we showed a drastic improvement. We just didn’t complete the deal today.”
Foxworthy was 16-of 20 for 99 yards passing and ran for 67 yards net after three sacks were taken away. Dodson had seven catches and caught six and each had a TD.
Both teams had 106 rush yards and the Athenians finished with 253 total yards, while FC had 205.
The eye-opening stat was in time of possession, where Crawfordsville had the ball for only 13:57, while FC held it for 34:03. The Mustangs ran 66 plays, while C’ville ran 42.
Both teams head into conference action next week, as the Mustangs travel to Riverton Parke in a WRC game, and Coach King will try and get his 200th career win, while the Athenians are home to Western Boone as the final season of Sagamore Conference play starts.
