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The Hawks took a first-half 7-0 lead Friday night at Palmer Field, but they couldn’t hold on as Avon scored three times in the second half to win, 22-7 in front of 400 fans on Homecoming night.
"I think they’re physically stronger," said V/C coach Bob McNamara. "Wearing us down is a nice description of what happened. They just took the game over in the second half."
V/C dominated the statistics in the first half, picking up 119 yards to Avon’s 54. But the second half was another story. The Falcons piled up 172 yards to the Hawks’ 38 and it was that bad.
"We challenged our kids at halftime to block, run, tackle and play with emotion and passion," said Avon coach Tim Feshler who won his first time back at Palmer Field after leaving Xavier in the offseason. "We just tried to eliminate our mistakes in the second half; we tried to do the things we could control. Because in the first half their kids took it to us."
V/C took a 7-0 lead in the first half. The Hawks marched 56 yards in just five plays. Fullback Greg Peterson’s 21-yard run to the Avon 30 set things up for quarterback Gary Rohrig, who carried the ball three times in a row, the final carry a 1-yard plunge for the score.
"We need to learn how to win," said McNamara. "Although we had a lead, we lost a chance to have a bigger lead when we committed a hold when we had the ball deep."
V/C moved to the Avon 19 in the first quarter, but the aforementioned holding call took the Hawks out of scoring range and they came up empty.
Avon took the lead in the third and did it by throwing the ball, something it couldn’t do in the first half. Will Sanders was 0-for-5 in the first half and didn’t come close to a completion. But in the second half, the kid was 4-for-6 for 75 yards.
A 26-yard pass to Derek Kon set up Sanders’ touchdown strike to Brendon Roche from nine yards out with exactly five minutes left in the third.
The Falcons surprised V/C with a conversion run from a split formation and Avon led 8-7.
Avon (2-3) won the game with a six-play, 64 yard march early in the fourth quarter, a drive highlighted by a 23-yard completion from Sanders to Kon and a 29-yard run by Roche (15 carries, 120 yards) on a counter.
"We couldn’t stop the counter," said McNamara. "We tried a lot of things, but we couldn’t do anything with it."
Avon’s final touchdown was window-dressing. It came on a 63-yard interception return by Kon with eight seconds showing on the clock. Avon took a knee on the conversion.
"Avon kept executing so my hat’s off to them," said McNamara.
Vinal (0-4) is at East Catholic Saturday.
