Champion Falcons stymie Lions, 35-14

FLORENCE — Whalen Memorial Field, the gridiron shrouded in trees behind Florence-Carlton High School, played out like this for the two-time defending State B champion Falcons Friday:

Short field for us, long one for you.

Mason Arlington threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as the top-ranked Falcons beat No. 2 Eureka 35-14. But the game was less about Florence’s offense than it was field position and, well, that other thing.

“We like our defense being overlooked,” Florence coach Pat Duchien said after his team improved to 7-0 (3-0 in the Western B) and picked up its 24th straight win on its home field. “Number 1 vs. the No. 2 team in the state — that’s a great program over there. But coach (Adam) Goodnight has our defense. … dialed.

“Everybody wants to talk about other defenses, and that’s fine, I want them to. We’re going to come in and hit you in the mouth.”

It was, despite the score, a defensive battle. Florence managed 230 yards of offense while holding the Lions (6-1, 2-1 in league) to 195.

The Falcons forced the Lions into an early three-and-out, got a short punt and drove 55 yards, the last 29 on a perfect toss from the left-handed Arlington to Drew Wagner.

The tone was set: Eureka again went three-and-out, and Florence took over at its 43. Arlington found Isaac Bates with a 17-yard reception, then kept the ball on a zone read and scooted 43 yards for the TD and a 14-0 lead.

Eureka steadied itself with a 30-yard screen pass to Caden Pecora. A personal foul helped the Lions drive 62 yards, ending with a 17-yard strike from AJ Truman to a well-covered Tristan Butts. It was 14-7 and 4:49 still remained in the first quarter.

Things slowed considerably from there, though the Falcons scored twice more in the half, thanks to that continued flipped field. First Tyler Abbott picked off a pass the heavily-pressured Truman threw from his goal line and took it 21 yards for the score.

Then, after forcing another Eureka punt, Arlington slipped a swing pass to Wagner for a 32-yard TD with 23 seconds left before intermission.

That made it 28-7 — a near-impossible hill to climb, though the Lions tried.

Forcing a punt to open the third quarter, Eureka took advantage of rare good field position and scored. Butts hauled in a 33-yard pass to set up a 15-yard scoring run from Pecora out of the power-I.

Soon enough the Lions were getting pinned deep again. With 255-pound Florence defensive tackle Arie McLaughlin wreaking havoc, the longest gain Eureka had after that was 6 yards. While Florence wasn’t any more explosive — Arlington misfired on 10 of his 11 second-half passes, and the Falcons’ longest gain was an 18-yard rugby scrum of a run by 230-pound Ethan Alexander — the hosts stayed comfortably ahead.

Eventually the Falcons got a 9-yard TD run from Gabriel Hartsell-Miller, one play after Eureka fumbled, with 2:37 left in the game.

“They got big play after big play against our punt coverage,” Lions coach Trevor Utter said. “And then we were getting pinned deep, which doesn’t exactly open up your playbook very much. Then we didn’t get the run game going to set up our pass. That’s something we typically do very well at, is being able to run the ball, and their D-line and linebackers did a good job not allowing us to do that.”

Butts had three catches for 89 yards, all of them in heavy traffic. Conversely the Lions provided tight pass coverage, and hung in as best they could.

“I am pleased with the way the kids responded,” Utter said. “We’ve got a lot of things we need to fix if we want to be back here. We feel like the best two teams in the state still played on this field tonight.”

Eureka 7 0 7 0 - 14

Florence 14 14 0 7 - 35

FC — Drew Wagner 29 pass from Mason Arlington (Wagner kick), 7:29-1Q

FC — Arlington 43 run (Wagner kick), 5:54-1Q

E — Tristan Butts 19 pass from AJ Truman (Remington Little kick), 4:49-1Q

FC — Tyler Abbott 21 interception return (Wagner kick)

FC — Wagner 32 pass from Arlington (Wagner kick), :23-2Q

E — Caden Pecora 15 run (Little kick), 9:25-3Q

FC — Gabriel Hartsell-Miller 9 run (Wagner kick), 2:47-4Q

Individual Statistics

RUSHING: Eureka (31-59) — Caden Pecora 16-61, Jesse Day 5-6, AJ Truman 7-2, Tristan Butts 2-0, Josh Lambertsen 1-minus 4. Florence (32-119) — Mason Arlington 12-47, Gabriel Hartsel-Miller 11-38, Ethan Alexander 5-31, Mose Smith 5-12.

PASSING: Eureka — Truman 8-23-2 for 136 yards. Florence — Arlington 6-25-0 for 92 yards; Trooper Oster 1-1-0 for 18 yards; E.Alexander 1-2-0 for 1 yard.

RECEIVING: Eureka — Butts 3-89, Pecora 2-38, Tristan Libby 1-5, Tyson Budree 1-3, Lambertsen 1-1. Florence — Wagner 2-61, Isaac Bates 2-25, Arlington 1-18, Bridger Alexander 1-1, E. Alexander 1-minus 2.