Allen, Willis pace Fort Hill over Northern, 36-7

Sep 3, 2022

ACCIDENT — Tavin Willis took Fort Hill’s second play from scrimmage 50 yards for a touchdown, and Mikey Allen ran his first two high school carries for scores, and the rest was history as No. 1 Fort Hill got its state title defense off to a positive start, taking down Northern, 36-7, Friday night at Half-Mile High Stadium.

Allen led the Sentinel offense with two carries for 139 yards and two touchdowns, while Willis tacked on six rushes for 122 yards and three scores.

“I’m fairly happy,” Fort Hill head coach Zack Alkire said. “We have to clean up some stuff but we literally had one day (of practice) on the turf. I don’t want to keep coming back to that, but it’s going to be difficult to prepare for a football game when you’re preparing on a field that’s really not suitable to practice on. … Other than the small mistakes, the lining up offsides, I thought we played really well.”

Fort Hill averaged 10.4 yards per play and nearly 11 per rush (10.8), as it outgained the Huskies 375-117 and 337-81 on the ground.

“We made some good plays, but if we didn’t make the play at the line of scrimmage or at linebacker, once they got to the second level it was lights out,” said Northern head coach Phil Carr. “They’re probably going to do that to a lot of teams.”

Northern had just one offensive drive cross midfield in the first half, but the Fort Hill defense drove the Huskies back across midfield during that first-quarter drive, which ended at the Northern 44 on a punt.

“The thought was that we were going to put Carter (Hess) over top the center and really make that guy’s night miserable, and Carter did that,” Alkire said. “Carter comes off the ball nice and low, he’s able to drive that center into the backfield and that just disrupts everything that they can do.”

“He’s one of, if not the best, in the area,” Carr said of Hess, who was voted Lineman of the Year in 2021 as a sophomore. “We’re trying to double and when you’re doubling one guy, that’s leaving someone unblocked. We couldn’t give Luke (Ross) much time to throw and we couldn’t get outside because of their speed. … When you can’t get outside, you’ve got to go inside and we couldn’t do much in there either.”

The Sentinels held Northern to no yards on its opening drive before taking over at the Northern 46.

Two plays and a false start penalty later, Willis took off from midfield and went untouched for a score. A bad snap on the point-after try forced a pass, which fell incomplete.

Despite a Fort Hill offside penalty on the first play of Northern’s ensuing drive, the Sentinels forced a three-and-out and took over at their own 6 following a booming 62-yard punt by Ethan Sebold.

After a 5-yard run by Tanner Wertz, Allen took the second-down handoff and burst through the line, out running the Northern secondary for an 89-yard scamper. Quinn Cohen’s PAT gave the Sentinels a 13-0 lead with 6:47 to go in the first quarter.

The Sentinels punted on their ensuing drive but got the ball back just over a minute later after a host of tacklers took down Ross in the end zone for a safety.

Fort Hill took over at its own 34 on the next drive, with Wertz pacing the offense 27 yards downfield on four carries before quarterback Lance Bender hit Anthony Palmisano for a 10-yard gain. The pass set up a 29-yard touchdown run by Willis, who followed multiple Fort Hill blockers off the edge and up the right side, splitting a pair of defenders before crossing the goal line. Cohen’s PAT gave the Sentinels a 22-0 advantage at 8:31 in the second, a lead Fort Hill held at the break.

The Sentinels tacked on two more scores in the third to get the running clock moving. Following a 13-yard run by Wertz on the first play from scrimmage after halftime, Allen took the handoff and went off left tackle before cutting back up the right side and outpacing the Huskies to the pylon.

Fort Hill forced a three-and-out on the ensuing drive and needed just three plays to reach the end zone on a 56-yard drive after Willis had carries of 9 and 19 yards to set up a 14-yard TD run. Cohen’s PAT made it 36-0 at 7:50.

Cohen, a soccer player-turned-kicker, was 4 for 4 on PATs and booted four kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Sentinels, however. They committed nine penalties for 70 yards, including eight for 55 in the first half.

“Way too many penalties,” Alkire said. “I do think it’s a matter of just getting on the turf and playing. A lot of those penalties were lining up offside. The penalty on Lance, Lance made a great play, escaped the pocket, found Tavin for what should’ve been a touchdown. We looked at it on Hudl and in our opinions, it was a great play, but that was another penalty there. But we’ve just got to keep playing and keep working and we’ll shore those things up.”

As the running clock raced toward :00, the Huskies wanted to get something out of their final offensive drive with a few minutes to go to build on next week’s home matchup against Albert Gallatin.

Carr called a timeout after a Fort Hill turnover on downs at the Northern 19.

Despite an 11-yard loss during the drive, the Huskies flipped the field thanks in large part to a 12-yard run by Sebold, 18-yard passes from Ross to Kyle Broadwater and Sebold, followed by an 18-yard run by Ross.

Kellen Hinebaugh capped the drive with a 14-yard touchdown run, followed by a Wally Brands PAT to put the score at its final with 1:05 to play.

“I kept our (offensive starters) in there on that last drive to just put something together for next Friday and I thought we did that,” Carr said. “We put it down the field. I know it was against maybe second, third team guys, but we were pushing it down the field, getting plays in, just little things that might come in handy next week at halftime or the end of the game.

“I knew if we don’t call a timeout, the clock’s going to keep running and we’d have very little time left. So I told them we’ll take a timeout, we need to try to score this drive. We’re not going to have a ton of time, so I had Luke trying to hustle us up. We took some plays without huddle, our two-minute stuff, so we got something out of the very end.”

Fort Hill (1-0) hits the road on Friday to take on Class 4A foe Old Mill, who the Sentinels beat 28-13 last year.

“Haven’t watched a whole lot of Old Mill,” Alkire said. “Watched a little bit of it, not saying we’re looking ahead because we definitely weren’t, but we just wanted to see what they had.

“They’re really big up front defensively, they’re fast defensively. They’re bringing in a bunch of new kids this year. I don’t have the full scouting report on them, but I know they graduated a bunch of kids last year. Their JV team went undefeated last year and beat a lot of really quality teams. They’ll be a good team and we’ll have to play really well to win.”