Du Quoin football, Week 4: Indians fall hard to Hornets on the road
Last week's the Du Quoin Indians football game seemed doomed from the beginning. Their Friday night road game at Nashville was postponed to Monday due to lightning. And when the game was finally played, the only thing lighting up the field were the Nashville Hornets. Du Quoin lost, 48-7.
"We made some key mistakes and it was one of those games that things kind of spiraled," said Du Quoin Coach Derek Beard.
"We did a lot of good things offensively, especially early on," he added. Early in the game, the score was a manageable 7-0 and Du Quoin was first and goal on Nashville's 4-yard line. A false start penalty backed them up.
"When we get in long yardage situations we just struggle to move the ball," Beard said, "and that was kind of the theme to the night. We would move the ball down the field and then have a negative play or make a penalty and end up in a long yardage situation."
The Indians dropped to 1-3 on the season and 1-2 in the SIRR Mississippi Division. Conference foe Carterville will come to Van Metre Field on Friday, April 23 for the final game of the pandemic-shortened season.
"We just got to get people healthy and get back to practice," Beard said. "We have to get back to some fundamentals as well as get better at blocking and tackling.
"Kids haven't done anything for a year and we've thrown them into two and three sports at the same time. It's just tough for them."
The Indians trailed 7-0 after the first quarter. The Indian defense had contained Hornet quarterback Cole Malawy, who started the game completing just one of his first five passes for 15 yards.
In the second quarter, however, Nashville put the game away with three touchdowns. The took a 28-0 lead into halftime, and then added two more touchdowns in the third quarter and another in the fourth. Malawy finished the game completing 14 of his final 16 pass attempts - four of them for touchdowns. He finished with 286 yards.
Beard said Nashville benefited this season from returning most of their offense from the 2019 season.
"We're very inexperience across our whole defense and they returned most of their offense minus three or four guys," Beard said.
Du Quoin crossed the goal line in the last five minutes of the game, on a one-yard run by Lane Bauman, who led the Indians in rushing with 65 yards on 13 carries. Nick Brown added 34 yards on seven carries followed by Konnor Harris with 32 yards on 11 carries and quarterback David Lee finishing with 20 yards on seven carries.
"Lane Bauman, who's been battling an injury, played well in his first game back since the first game of the season," Beard said. "Konnor Harris also played well."
The Hornets defense kept Lee in check intercepting the junior four times while holding him to just three completions in 14 attempts for 63 yards, including a 55-yard completion to Caden Hutchens.
Adding insult to injury this week's home game against Harrisburg - which was initially moved from Friday night to Saturday afternoon because of having to play on Monday - was canceled outright due to COVID-19 protocols.
The official announcement read: "We learned (Wednesday) morning of a positive COVID case among our football team. As a result of contact tracing it has been determined the home game v. Harrisburg for this Saturday will be canceled due to the number of athletes who were in close contact with the positive case. At this time there has been no decision to cancel any other football games at any level."
Game stats
Nashville 48, Du Quoin 7 Du Quoin 0 0 0 7 - 7 Nashville 7 21 13 7 - 48
Rushing Du Quoin: Lane Bauman, 13-65-1TD; Nick Brown, 7-34; Konnor Harris, 11-32; David Lee, 7-20. Nashville: Connor Gladson, 8-75-1TD; Cole Malawy, 4-39; Nick Miller, 3-24; Kolton Gajewski, 2-14; Kaden Gajewski, 3-9; Luke Ehret, 2-6-1TD.
Passing Du Quoin: Lee 3-14-4-63-0TD. Nashville: Malawy, 15-21-0-286-4TD.
Receiving Du Quoin: Caden Hutchens, 1-55; Owen Bradley, 1-11; Drake Kremer, 1-(-3). Nashville: Isaac Turner, 7-121-2TD; Miller, 3-95-1TD; Jaxon Goforth, 3-51-1TD; Buzz Ritzel. 2-19.