|
 Aelits, the left handed senior quarterback, rolled to his left and
was supposed to keep the ball, but a Decatur Eisenhower defender
stepped up and Aeilts had no choice but to throw it.
“I was going run it at first, but the defense was up in my face,”
Aeilts said. “I saw Andrew (Yount) get behind his guy, so I lobbed
it up.”
Yount, the junior who's become a workhorse runner for the
Railsplitter offense, found himself two steps behind his defender
and staring at ball that seemed to hang in the air.
“He lobbed it up and I just caught it. I pulled it into my body and
made sure I didn't drop it,” Yount recalled.
The nine yard pass and catch ended-up being the Railers' first
touchdown of the 2015 season, and the only score Saturday.
Decatur Eisenhower proved to be all they're cracked-up to be.
The Panthers scored at ease on the Railer defense, junior
quarterback Cayleb Dehortity passed for a handful of touchdowns and
ran for another.
The score was 35-0 at halftime, and 47-0 at the end of the third
quarter. The game ended with a 47-6 victory for Decatur.
But Eisenhower was sloppy.
The Panthers turned the ball over four times and were flagged for a
string of penalties.
Lincoln Coach Seth Bass said Eisenhower has the second best offense
in the Center State Eight, so he wasn't that shocked by the final
score.
“You can see we're getting close,” Bass said after the Railers'
fourth loss of the season. “For us to look that good, at a lot of
times, against them is very encouraging. But at the end of the day
the result speaks for itself.”
[to top of second column] |
Bass preached to his team, before and after Saturday's game, if they
focus on their jobs, focus on their play, the successes will follow.
“We need to worry about ourselves,” Bass said. “We're going to focus
on ourselves this week.”
There is no ignoring the Railers' next opponent though. Or next two
opponents for that matter.
Lincoln travels to Springfield to face the defending state champion
Sacred Heart Griffin Cyclones next week.
“SHG is SHG,” Bass said. “They've won like 90-something conference
games in a row.”
The week after that Lincoln will host the Central State Eight's
other defending state champs, the Rochester Rockets.
“Yeah, they are state champions,” senior linebacker Ryan Rutschke
said. “But we're just going to go out there and have fun and play a
good game.”
Bass hopes to see his team improve, even if its just small steps
over the next two weeks.
Lincoln is eying the October 9th game against Decatur MacArthur as
the Railers' next chance for a win.
Eisenhower improves to 2-2 on the season, Lincoln falls to 0-4.
[Benjamin
Yount] |
