Harrison football adds Centreville to schedule, claims 24-14 victory

By BEN MURPHY

Cleaver Sports Writer

After their originally scheduled opponent Beaverton had to cancel on Harrison, due to lack of healthy players, it left the Hornets scrambling for a game. Harrison fortunately found a tacker in Centreville, and the two sides met up on Friday, with Harrison making the long trip south to Centreville, where they claimed a 24-14 non-conference football victory.

“We didn’t know anything about them, they are so far south,” head coach Jamie Lipovsky said. “When Beaverton canceled on Monday night, we began an exhaustive search, looking all over the place to find a team that was available. A couple teams declined to paly us, but we have 15 seniors and one game is like 12 percent (of your regular season) and I didn’t want to tell those kids that the other team canceled, they lost 12 percent of their season. We heard Centreville was looking for a game and I quickly made sure they were within the state and thought that was a long ways, but within 10 minutes we had them booked, so that was nice. Long drive, but well worth the opportunity to give our kids the opportunity to play somebody.”

As for the game itself, the Hornets were able to use a good first half to take control of things. Nyxon Rhodes, had a huge night, running for 145 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries, and he also had a nine-yard receiving touchdown from Matt Latunski.

He had one score each in the first and second quarters, rushing in from 50 and seven yards out, and it was 16-0 at the half.

“He was really doing a great job of meeting people in the hole, instead of trying to dance around them, he just put his shoulder down and ran them over and he picked up quite a few yards that way,” Lipovsky said. “He’s not a gigantic running back, but he really stuck his foot in the ground and power drove the. He had a great night and did a great job.”

Rhodes added another touchdown midway through the third quarter, this time rushing in from four yards away. Harrison wouldn’t score again the rest of the way, and they survived a pair of late touchdowns by the Bulldogs.

“It was disappointing (to give up the late scores), but at the end of the day we got the win and the kids were excited and happy, so it was a good trip,” Lipovsky said.

Other contributors on the night included Collin Dennis who rushed 10 times for 45 yards, Aiden Brewer who ran 10 times for 35 yards and Latunski, who rushed for 34 yards and completed one pass, the nine-yard touchdown to Rhodes.

“I thought our offensive line really swung their defense down, kind of like a door,” Lipovsky said. “The right side swung everyone down and pushed them out of the way and it led to some huge holes. I thought Alex Erskine, James Sample and Parker Latunski on the right side, did a really good job of just pushing the line. The left side did a pretty good job too, with Errol Mashue, Cooper Whitaker and Kelton Carlstrom. My center, Kannon Sheldon did a good job, too, controlling things on the centerline.”

The defense was led by Daniel Seefeld with seven tackles, Alex Jansen had six, M. Latunski had five and Brewer took down four. Rhodes also tracked down three tackles.

Harrison (4-0 overall) returns home to take on St. Louis (0-4) in Jack Pine Conference play on Friday. The Sharks are coming off a 56-0 setback to Meridian last week, and fell to Beaverton 36-20 the week before.

“They are an interesting team, they’ve got two really good running backs,” Lipovsky said. “They have a 255-pound fullback and he brings the lumber when he gets the ball, he is a tank to bring down and he runs the ball well. Their tailback is pretty good, does a good job from that spot and is fast and has real powerful legs. We did not expect that they would be 0-4 coming into our game, we’ve watched the film close and they’ve made some mistakes that have cost them games, they’re a very good opponent for us on Homecoming, for sure.”