Danville routs HLT following second-half collapse

In what’s become a pattern for the Highland-Lone Tree football team, offensive mistakes and a rash of big plays in the second half erased a solid defensive first half for HLT, losing 39-6 at Danville on Friday.

“We have to reevaluate how we operate at halftime and how we operate pregame, because I don’t feel like we had a lot of energy, head coach Thayne McElhinney said.

HLT’s defense opened the game with back-to-back stops, holding the Bears scoreless through the first quarter, but the offense struggled to move the ball. Short fields on a pair of turnovers for quarterback Caleb Wheeler, one on a fumble and one on an interception, put the defense in tough spots that led to a pair of Danville touchdowns, the second coming on a perfectly-placed ball by sophomore Danville quarterback Hayden Russell with 3 seconds left in the half, giving the Bears a 13-0 lead at the break.

After a strong first half, the wheels fell off defensively in the second half.

A 74-yard touchdown pass on Danville’s first play from scrimmage of the second half extended the lead to three scores, and an 11-yard touchdown pass from Wheeler to senior Garrett Beeson only temporarily stemmed the bleeding, as the Bears finished the game by scoring 19 unanswered points.

Of Danville’s 4 second-half touchdowns, 3 of them came on 40+ yard plays.

“We have to prepare better,” McElhinney said. “I feel like we walked into this game thinking it was going to be easy, and they responded not the way I wanted them to respond.”

The game got chippy in the second half, with six unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called in the third quarter and each sideline receiving a warning. Of the unsportsmanlike calls, two went against HLT while four went against Danville.

“We preach a lot of just playing within the whistle,” McElhinney said. “They want to run their mouths and stuff, let them… That’s just football.”

HLT will return to action at Van Buren County on Friday.

Scouting VBC

Van Buren and HLT enter Friday’s game in similar positions. Both are 1-2 in conference play. Both are entering with two-game losing streaks following losses to Pekin and Danville. Both lean heavily on their passing games to move the ball.

Van Buren is led by senior quarterback Will Cocherell, who has thrown for 1039 yards and 7 touchdowns this season. Junior Jace Duncan is one of the district’s most explosive receivers with 503 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns on the year.

Defensively, the Warriors have one of the district’s least aggressive fronts with just one sack on the year, but the team boasts a potent secondary with four interceptions this season.

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Van Buren County High School.