The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
The West Prairie-La Harpe Cyclones picked up their first victory of the 2004 season by knocking off Southern-Union co-op squad 43-8 last Friday night. The Cyclones took the early lead at Stronghurst on a 27-yard run by sophomore halfback Joel DeCounter and never looked back from that point. The win puts WP-LH at 1-2 on the season and sets up a big match-up with 2-1 Brown County at Sciota this Friday night.
DeCounter's early TD was the start of a big night for him and the Cyclone ground attack. WP-LH would rush for 420 yards on the night, with 136 coming from DeCounter. The Cyclones would also score 6 TD's on the ground with DeCounter scoring 4 times (on runs of 27, 9, 22, and 24 yards).
Junior QB Kevin Mershon scored on a 14 yard run, while senior halfback Kevin Penrod added a 1-yard scoring dive. A 27-yard field goal by sophomore place kicker Matt Woolam, and conversion runs by Mershon and freshman QB Nicholas Burke closed out the Cyclone scoring.
The Cyclone ground attack was spear-headed by a solid effort from the offensive line center Ben Cox, guards Jon Zaehringer and J.D. Hobby, tackles Ryan Mullenix and Jacob Markey, and tight-ends Jason Poulter and Vic Voight did a good job all night of opening holes in the S/U defensive front.
The backfield beneficiaries of all this solid blocking included not only DeCounter, but also Mershon (54 yards), Woolam (42 yards), Robbie Moon (35 yards), Joe Pierson (88 yards), Penrod (17 yards), Alex Rodeffer (12 yards), and Burke (31 yards). Mershon also chipped in with 3 completions for 39 yards, including 2 catches by Poulter (34 yards) and one grab by Pierson (5 yards).
The Cyclone defense was also much improved over their week #2 performance. They held S/U to 168 total yards including negative 27 yards on the ground. S/U did gain 195 yards in the air but it took 37 pass attempts to get that. Meanwhile, WP-LH took advantage of the air attack by picking off 4 passes. Woolam, Mershon, Penrod, and DeCounter all had interceptions in the game to stop S/U drives.
The Cyclone tackle chart was not as full as usual because of the incompletions by S/U and good ball control by the Cyclones (nearly 32 minutes of the 48 minute game).
Besides the pick-offs, the defense did a good job of pressuring the S/U quarterback. Applying the pressure up front were Cox, Poulter, Zaehringer, Hobby, Markey, John Bruns, Evan Wisely, and Austin Johnson.