Airedales power past Siloam Springs

Panthers off to 0-2 start, play at Greenbrier

Mark Ross/Special to the Herald-Leader
Alma quarterback Joe Trusty (left) carries the ball with a host of blockers in front as Siloam Springs defenders try to make the stop. The Airedales defeated the Panthers 38-7.
Mark Ross/Special to the Herald-Leader Alma quarterback Joe Trusty (left) carries the ball with a host of blockers in front as Siloam Springs defenders try to make the stop. The Airedales defeated the Panthers 38-7.

Siloam Springs got off to a solid start in its home opener against Alma on Friday, Sept. 2.

Panthers senior Nick Driscoll intercepted a Joe Trusty pass on the Airedales' first offensive possession and the Siloam Springs defense forced Alma to a punt on its second possession.

A scoreless first quarter turned into a nightmare of a second quarter as Alma scored 25 points and rolled to a 38-7 victory at Panther Stadium.

"They were more physical than us in the second quarter and fourth quarter," Siloam Springs Coach Brandon Craig said. "We played pretty solid football in the first quarter and third quarter. We're very inconsistent as a team right now in our assignments and physicality. Pretty much in all aspects of the game. We're looking to try to keep improving. We don't have a lot of depth or people we can swap in and out. So we've got to take the guys we've got and keep getting better."

The Airedales (2-0) engineered a 22-play, 94-yard scoring drive, which began in the first quarter, to score the game's first touchdown.

Facing third down and 13 from its own 3-yard line, Trusty, Alma's senior quarterback, hit Matthew Schlegel for 23 yards as the Airedales got out of the shadow of their own end zone.

Isreal Towns-Robinson then rushed for 11 yards, followed by runs of nine by Trusty, and eight and 19 by Carlos Gonzalez. Trusty hit two straight passes to the 24, and Alma rushed six more times for 24 yards, capped by Gonzalez' one-yard touchdown run with 9:07 remaining in the half. The lead remained 6-0 when the extra point try failed because of a bad snap.

Siloam Springs, which had 47 yards of offense in the first quarter, struggled to gain any positive yardage on its next possession and was forced to punt.

The Airedales went back to work with a short field at the 43-yard line.

Trusty had a 23-yard run followed by a nine-yard run by Towns-Robinson to the 4. Trusty then threw a four-yard touchdown pass to Jackson Dailey with 5:05 remaining in the half for a 12-0 lead.

The Airedales quickly went up 19-0 when Brady Noyes intercepted a Jackson Still pass and returned it 16 yards for another Alma score.

Following a 15-minute delay due to the stadium lights going out, the game resumed and Alma tacked on another touchdown before halftime with Towns-Robinson scoring from one yard out to take a 25-0 lead lead at intermission. Trusty found Schlegel for another big gain of 29 yards earlier in the drive.

"I tell you in the second quarter we did several good things, but I think the key to that whole thing was we were an extremely physical football team," said Alma coach Rusty Bush. "I mean we were really knocking people around. And that was my challenge to them this week. We beat a good Van Buren football team (last week). I think people still don't believe that the Airedales are pretty decent and, like I told the kids, I think we just raised eyebrows last week and we wanted to make some noise with this win. We thought coming on the road, Siloam Springs at home, first game at home, if we could really come out and play physical and be explosive on offense we can make some noise in the 5A and I think we did that."

After being held to minus six yards in the second quarter, Siloam Springs received the opening kick of the second half and manufactured an impressive 11-play, 71-yard scoring drive to pull within 25-7.

Jed Derwin opened the second half with a nine-yard run and Still hit Driscoll for nine yards, followed by the sophomore quarterback running for six yards.

Derwin then carried three straight times for 22 yards, including a 17-yard run.

Still hit Driscoll for another eight-yard gain, and after an Alma penalty, he hit Jonathon Graves for an 11-yard touchdown with 8:30 remaining in the third quarter.

The Panthers got a stop on defense, and the offense went back to work and moved the ball with strong runs of 11 and 7 yards from Derwin and 11 more yards on two runs combined from Still. Still hit Quinten Motsinger for a 17-yard gain, but the drive stalled and the Panthers punted it away.

Alma regrouped on its next offensive possession and went up 32-7 when Towns-Robinson broke free for a 46-yard touchdown run with 28.1 seconds left in the third.

The Airedales added another long scoring drive in the fourth quarter, traveling 56 yards on 11 runs, capped by a Gonzalez 1-yard TD run.

Alma, which finished with 341 yards of offense, including 262 rushing yards on 46 carries.

Gonzalez ran 22 times for 98 yards, while Towns-Robinson had 13 carries for 97 yards and Trusty 10 carries for 59 yards. Trusty completed 8 of 12 passes for 79 yards.

"We feel pretty good up front. We're a little young," Bush said. "We've got four juniors and one senior that are starting. Those two running backs, Carlos Gonzalez and Isreal Towns-Robinson, are going to be two phenomenal players. One's a junior, the other's just a sophomore. Joe Trusty back there, we really didn't run Joe tonight, and that was the plan. We ran him quite a bit last week. That was another mix we really didn't bring out in our game plan tonight, which we can still do, and we did that on purpose, but we feel really good about our offense and our running game."

Siloam Springs was limited to 152 yards of offense.

Derwin led the Panthers in rushing with 13 carries for 49 yards, while Still rushed for 36 yards on 16 carries and completed 8 of 17 passes for 67 yards.

"We have five new starters on the offensive line," Craig said. "On nights like that when you're playing a good, physical defensive line, a fast defensive line, it really shows up. Those guys are still in the process of catching up to Friday night speed. It was their second high school football game as starters. They're just going to continue to grow and get better."

Siloam Springs returns to action Friday, Sept. 9, at Greenbrier to open 6A-West Conference play.

Greenbrier (1-1) forced five Vilonia turnovers to beat the Eagles 19-14 on Friday, Sept. 2, at Vilonia.

Greenbrier led 13-0 before Vilonia came back and took a 14-13 lead in the second half.

Greenbrier quarterback Kane Griffin threw a 42-yard touchdown pass to Carter McElhany with 4:39 left in the fourth quarter for what would be the game-winning points.

Griffin completed 18 of 30 passes for 260 yards and 3 touchdowns, according to an article in the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway. McElhany caught 6 passes for 133 yards. He also rushed for 64 yards on 16 carries. Israel Guzman caught 6 passes for 79 yards.

  photo  Mark Ross/Special to the Herald-Leader Siloam Springs junior George LeRoy (No. 42) jumps into the air in pursuit of Alma quarterback Joe Trusty (No. 8) during the game Friday, Sept. 2, at Panther Stadium. Alma defeated the Panthers 38-7.