High school football: Allen East fends off Upper Scioto Valley

MCGUFFEY — Allen East fended off a late charge by Upper Scioto Valley to secure a 27-14 victory in this backyard brawl nonleague season opener Friday night.

Up 19-0 going into the final 12 minutes, USV scored two touchdowns in the last four minutes of the game and had a chance to get the go-ahead score when the Rams recovered a fumble at its own 35 with 1:14 left on the clock. But on the next play Mustang Trey Hensley came up with a big interception to stop the Rams’ drive.

Four plays later, Mustang Jacob Hershberger raced in from 24 yards with less than a minute in the game to end USV’s chances of a comeback.

“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times,” Mustang head coach Joel Billings said. “It was an ugly game. We had a lot of penalties and they were legit. We really did do some stupid things that you can’t do but as we move forward and closer to league play we have a lot of things to work on.”

USV head coach Dustin Price said his team was proud of his team’s effort of not giving up despite being down 19 late in the game.

“We put ourselves in a position to win a game and that is all we can ask for,” Price said. “Our guys fought tooth and nail and they never gave up and the defense stepped up and made some great plays. I thought our offensive line did really well. Defensively I thought we tackled well in space outside a play here and there.”

The Mustang offense was brought to you by the letter H as the Hoel brothers, along with Hershberger provided the scores and the excitement.

Mustang Jack Hoel rushed for 100 yards on 20 carries and scored twice to spearhead the ground game and Joe Hoel had five catches for 89 yards and one touchdown to highlight the passing game.

Hershberger showed off his dual threat skills as he rushed for 87 yards on eight carries and a touchdown and was 12 of 19 for 122 yards and one touchdowns.

“Jacob did some great things and we will give him the ball with the game on the line which we expect him to do,” Billings said. “We saw some other players do good things.

“They did a really good job of controlling the clock and limiting our possessions. They had a really solid game plan and took the ball out of our hands.”

The Mustangs scored once in the first, on its first drive, and then tacked on two scores in the third quarter to go up 19-0 Jack Hoel scored the first touchdown, on a run of nine yards and then in the third quarter, scampered 26 yards for the Mustangs’ second score.

Joe Hoel got in on the scoring when he hauled in a pass near the out of bounds and pylon from 26 yards for the team’s third quarter.

USV’s lone score came late in fourth quarter when Sanders, who finished the night with 156 yards on 20 carries, dove in from one yard out

Defensively, Allen East had to contend with Sanders who compiled 163 yards on 26 carries with one touchdown. This showed USV was able to move the ball but failed to finish off several scoring drives deep in Mustang territory.

Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.