The Hillsboro football team dropped a 57-27 decision to Halstead Friday night in a wild game that was not as lopsided as the final score might indicate.
The Trojans battled the Dragons pretty well in the first half, but trailed 22-14 at intermission. David Dick scored the first of Hillsboro?s two touchdowns on a 7-yard pass from Justus Hilliard on the first play of the second quarter. The Trojans then took their only lead at 7-6 when Jeffrey Jorgenson kicked the extra point.
After a second Halstead touchdown, Hilliard scored from a yard out at the 6:31 mark. Jorgenson?s kick tied the game 14-14. Halstead countered with a 9-yard touchdown run by Eli McKee with 1:56 left to give the home team the eight-point lead at the break.
The game turned against Hillsboro early in the third quarter. After the Trojans went three-and-out to start the half, Blake Beckett scored from 44 yards out on Halstead?s first play from scrimmage. Beckett struck again at the 7:03 mark from 30 yards out and Halstead suddenly led 37-14.
But the Trojans mounted a two-touchdown rally, scoring at the 3:01 mark of the third quarter on a 4-yard pass from Hilliard to Dick. The Trojans then recovered their onside kick and Hilliard eventually scored on a 5-yard run at the 8:25 mark, pulling Hillsboro to within 37-27 with a chance at a two-point conversion that would pull them within one touchdown. But Hilliard?s pass to Elliott Ollenburger fell incomplete in the end zone, keeping Halstead?s lead at 10.
That?s when the flood gates opened. Hillsboro attempted an onside kick, but Halstead recovered the ball at the Trojan 40-yard line and scored three plays later on a 19-yard run by Beckett to take a 43-27 lead with 7:07 left in the game.
Halstead then recovered a Trojan fumble on Hillsboro?s first play from scrimmage. Two plays later Joe Myers ran into the end zone from four yards out, and a two-point conversion run made the score 51-27 .
Four plays into the Trojans? next possession, a Hilliard pass was intercepted by Joe Stovall, who ran it back 48 yards for a touchdown with 5:03 to play to round out the scoring at 57-27.
The Trojans barely avoided one more Halstead touchdown when Hilliard fumbled around the Trojan 25-yard line and freshman Noah Mendez scooped up the ball and ran it down to the Hillsboro 3. The Trojan varsity shut down Halstead?s subs in four plays, but gave the ball back to the Dragons in the final minute when Hilliard was intercepted by Chase VanSteenburg at the Halstead 10.
Hillsboro dropped to 1-2 with the loss while Halstead improved to 2-1.
