Chase County Longhorns escape Hershey with a win

    It wasn’t the prettiest game that the Longhorn Football team has played this year but it goes in the books as a win just the same.
    The Longhorns where plagued with drive killing penalties all night long Thursday Sept. 28 in Hershey, which killed several drives.
    The game started with Hershey kicking the ball out of bounds which gave the Longhorns good field position at their own 35.
    The Horns moved the ball down the field without a lot of problems getting to the Hershey 38 for a first down. On third and five, Thomas Reeves picked up 10 yards but a penalty at the end of the play backed it up to first and 15 at the 43.
    Hershey stopped the Horns for no gain on first and good pressure caused Malachi Christensen to scramble and lose the ball. Thomas Reeves jumped on it, keeping the drive alive.
    On third and 17 from the 45  Christensen handed the ball to Reeves who cut left and hit a nice gap for a touchdown. A bobbled snap by Luis Co was picked up and Co threw to Reeves for the two point conversion. That would be all the scoring in the first quarter.
    The Longhorns scored again in the second quarter when they got caught in no man land with a fourth down and nine yards to go at the Hershey 39.
    Christensen scrambled in the backfield and broke free on the left side, scampering in for a 39 yard score.
    McArthur added the extra point to make it a 15-0 lead. Both teams had drives stall in the middle of the second quarter.
    The Longhorns had Hershey backed up to their own six yard line with less than a minute left in the half. Panther quarterback Cooper Hill dropped back in the end zone under heavy pressure and launched a pass deep.
    It came down well short of his receiver and two Longhorns had a shot at the interception. In their attempt to make the catch the ball bounced of the defenders into the hands of the Hershey receiver five yards beyond any other defenders and he was off to the races for the 94 yard touchdown and the Panthers first score.
    Zach Tarin busted through the line to block the point after attempt leaving the score 6-15 at the half.
    The Panthers were fired up coming out of halftime and played a very good third quarter of defense.
    Hershey’s quarterback had a great ability to scramble for his life and hold onto the ball until the last moment and then with a quick flip of the wrist get the ball to his receivers with pretty good accuracy.
    The Horns got burned on a couple missed coverages letting the Panthers get into the red zone where they punched it in from the seven yard line.         The point attempt was no good leaving the Longhorns up by three.
    On the next drive by the Longhorns and the first play of the fourth quarter, Reeves rambled 59 yards, shedding any would be tacklers from Hershey for the last touchdown of the game. McArthur’s kick was good and the Longhorns increased the lead to 22-12.
    With under four minutes left in the game the Longhorns had a drive stall at the 20 so they brought in McArthur to try the 37 yard field goal. The kick had plenty of distance but sailed wide of the crossbars and fell no good.
    Hershey had one more chance but the Longhorn defense had other ideas and shut them down as they had done most of the night.
    The Longhorns dominated the stats with 267 total yards compared to 111 for Hershey. The Longhorns had 45 yards passing and 222 rushing. Hershey had 128 passing, with 95 of those yards coming on one play and a negative 17 yards rushing.
    Christensen was 4/6 for 45 yards C. Dillan 0-1 and L. Co 1-1 for 2 point conversion. Reeves rushed 15 times for 138 yards and two touchdowns, C. Dillan 6-33, T. Hubbard 8-33, M. Christensen 9-20 and one touchdown.
    On defense T. O’Neil had 5 solo tackles and 2 assists, T. Jablonski 2-0, J. Peterson 2-2, B. Merino 2-0, K. Clevenger 2-0, J. McArthur 2-0, C. Dillan 1-5, L. Co 1-1, D. Russell 1-0, T. Hubbard 0-4, S. Heermann 0-5, Z. Tarrin 0-1, J. Medina 0-1.
Next action:
    The Longhorns welcome the Mitchell Tigers to town Friday Oct. 6 for Homecoming starting at 6 p.m. MT. The Tigers are 5-1 and coming off a 65-30 win over Alliance.
    The winner of this game will be in the drivers seat to take the C2 District 7 automatic birth into the playoffs.