Ohio County outlasts Muhlenberg 38-26
Sep. 18—HARTFORD — Ohio County put on quite an offensive display in earning its first win of the high school football season.
The Eagles prevailed, 38-26, in a back and forth matchup between two teams that have had seriously depleted numbers in the last couple of weeks.
They are now 1-4 on the season.
Matthew Smith led the way for the Eagles with 16 carries for 201 yards and three rushing touchdowns to go with a touchdown reception.
"First victory, it feels great," a happy Ohio County coach Josh Monin said. "We ran the ball well, we'd been working on that all week. We stuck with our game plan. We're missing six starters, one of those deals, we needed this win badly. I'm super proud of them.
"Smith, he had an excellent game, I can't ask more from him."
Smith's 44-yard touchdown put Ohio County up 7-0 with 4:01 left in the first quarter. Devin Gott hit Smith with a 17-yard touchdown that Smith got with second effort after the catch for a 14-0 advantage with 9:49 left in the second quarter.
Muhlenberg County responded with a 46-yard scoring pass from Kanyon Johnson to Donovan McCoy with 6:58 left in the second period.
The Mustangs tied the game 14-14 on a 70-yard touchdown pass-run play from Johnson to Brayden Lovan where Lovan went up for the catch than ran through tacklers for the score with 5:35 left before halftime.
Gott put Ohio County back in front 21-14 on a 1-yard plunge with 58 seconds left before the half.
Johnson and McCoy connected again on a 19-yard scoring pass that was threaded in, but the extra point was blocked leaving Muhlenberg County down 21-20.
Smith got loose for a 23-yard touchdown run but the extra point was blocked so Ohio County was up 27-20 with 8:27 to play in the third quarter.
Lovan made a 26-yard touchdown catch in traffic where he went up and got the Johnson pass again, which cut Ohio County's lead to 27-26 after a 2-point conversion run failed with 1:19 left in the third quarter.
Smith rolled for a 49-yard touchdown run that eventually put the game out of reach, 35-26, with 7:39 left.
Hoskins connected on a 25-yard field goal with 3:03 left to close out the scoring.
Johnson put on a sterling passing performance in the loss. The third-string quarterback who was starting because of injuries hit 18-of-26 passes for 357 yards and four touchdowns with one interception late.
Lovan had five catches for 137 yards. McCoy made five catches for 118 yards for Muhlenberg County.
"We knew he was a good athlete, and we knew eventually he was going to be our guy, but it got moved up extremely fast," Muhlenberg County coach Josh Staples said of Johnson.
"I'm proud of the heart we played with, but we had chances and we need to make our own breaks, then we've got to take advantage of them, we just didn't do that tonight."
Muhlenberg County fell to 1-4.
MUHLENBERG COUNTY 0 14 12 0 — 26
OHIO COUNTY 7 14 6 11 — 38
O-Smith 44 run (Hoskins kick)
O-Smith 17 pass from Gott (Hoskins kick)
M-McCoy 46 pass from Johnson (Lindsey kick)
M-Lovan 70 pass from Johnson (Lindsey kick)
O-Gott 1 run (Hoskins kick)
M-McCoy 19 pass from Johnson (kick failed)
O-Smith 23 run (kick blocked)
M-Lovan 26 pass from Johnson (run failed)
O-Smith 49 run (Gott run)
O-Hoskins 25 FG
