On Saturday, the 7-2 Hopkins football team traveled to the heart of Amish Country in Lancaster, PA, to face the 3-5 Franklin & Marshall Diplomats.
The Jays emerged victorious against their conference rivals, jumping to an early lead and never looking back en route to a 40-21 victory that brought them one step closer to securing the Centennial Conference Title.
The Jays received the opening kickoff, but were forced to punt after just one set of downs. F&M punted on their first possession as well, and the Jays returned the punt to their own 49-yard line, giving the offense great field position.
Hopkins put its first points on the board when senior fullback Steve Stache rumbled into the end zone from two-yards out with 6:08 left in the first quarter, culminating a time-consuming, 13-play drive. Junior kicker Chris Smolyn's extra point put the Jays up 7-0.
On the following possession, the F&M offense began to drive up the field and threatened to score. However, freshman defensive end Brian Cook forced and recovered a fumble, giving the Jays offense possession at their own 35. The Jays offense could not get much going on their possession, and punted back to F&M.
In the beginning of the second quarter, the Hopkins defense stuffed the Diplomats offense and forced a punt. Junior linebacker Yoker Nuni, who is also from Lancaster, blocked the punt.
"They weren't blocking down too hard on me, and I had a pretty good seam," said Nuni, "The punter bobbled the ball a little bit, which gave me some time to get in his face. It was great to get a punt block in the home town."
The Jays recovered the ball at the F&M 30-yard line and a few plays later capitalized on Nuni's punt block with a 10-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback George Merrell to sophomore wide receiver Brian Wolcott. The ensuing extra point put the Jays up 14-0.
The Hopkins defense came out strong once again, forcing a F&M punt, which was returned to midfield. The Jays offense struggled for a few plays, but on third down, Merrell completed a pass to freshman running back T.J. Lyons for a 15-yard pass and a first down on the 33. A few plays later, Merrell rolled left to pass, but seeing no open receivers, scrambled across the field and evaded defenders en route to another Hopkins touchdown. This put the Blue Jays ahead, 20-0.
But the scoring did not end there. Just before halftime, the Jays defense forced another Diplomats punt.
Hopkins got the ball back but fumbled on the F&M 40 yard-line. In a lightning quick drive which took only 37 seconds off the clock, the Diplomats scored their first points of the day on an eight-yard touchdown pass, making the score 20-7 at halftime.
F&M received the ball to open the third quarter, but went three and out. On the next possession, the Jays put together a 17- play drive which covered 77 yards in almost 6 minutes. Senior running back Kevin Johnson advanced the team up the field with several strong runs up the middle. The drive culminated in Merrell's 21-yard touchdown pass to freshman wide receiver Steve Eno. An extra point put the Jays up 27-7.
Once again the Jays defense forced a F&M punt, and once again the offense took it to the end zone, this time in only one play. The Jays returned the punt to the 49, and on the next play Lyons ran through a huge hole on the left side of the line and outran the Diplomats' defenders for a 51-yard touchdown run. Smolyn's extra point made the score 34-7 with 7:55 remaining in the third quarter.
After trading possessions several times, Hopkins mounted another scoring drive, this one a 32-yard field goal by Smolyn to put the Jays up 37-7 as time ran out in the third quarter.
In the beginning of the fourth quarter, Smolyn hit another field goal, this one from 33 yards out, to close out the Jays' scoring. Down 40-7, the Diplomats began to come alive, and scored two touchdowns at the end of the game. One came on a long 75-yard pass, the other a two-yard run, but it was too late to catch up, and the Jays emerged the victor, 40-21.
The Blue Jays' defense played another excellent game, especially versus the run, as they held the Diplomats' ground attack to just 63 yards on the day. Senior defensive end Nick Loicano stood out with six tackles, one and a half sacks and two pass breakups and made Centennial Conference Defensive Honor Roll.
"The defense has played strong the entire year," said Coach Jim Margraff. "Today we shut down the run and forced them to pass. Our secondary did a great job, F&M had two of the best receivers in the league, but we held them in check."
The offense had a great performance as well, putting up 40 points, accumulating over 400 yards total offense and averaging over five yards per rush. Merrell played a great game, earning a spot on the Centennial Conference Offensive Honor Roll with 141 yards passing, 62 yards rushing and three touchdowns. "George made some real good decisions, particularly in the passing game," said Margraff. "He did a nice job running the football, scrambling a couple of times and added another element to our offense."
"It was a total team victory," said Smolyn. "We had 10 players catch passes, a strong defensive unit, and solid special teams. It put a lot of confidence in our players because everyone did so well, and that's going to reflect next week in the Conference Championship."
Next week the Jays (7-2) will host the McDaniel Green Terror (8-1) in the Conference Title game. Besides battling for a stake in the conference championship, Hopkins football will also look set a record for most wins in a season, if they defeat the Green Terror and finish at 8-2.
The game is at Homewood at 1p.m. on Saturday and there is no shortage of hype surrounding the upcoming contest. The clash between these two conference powerhouses promises to be an exciting game, and as Margraff says, "It doesn't get much bigger than this."
