Logan Elm made Circleville pay for its mistakes and took advantage of good field position to defeat host Circleville 35-17 in the annual Backyard Brawl.
It’s the fifth straight win for LE in the series and the Braves have won six of the seven games since the Kingston National Bank traveling Backyard Brawl trophy has been on the line.
“I can’t explain how sweet of a feeling that it really is. And for a myriad of reasons,” LE coach Terry Holbert said. “It’s a rivalry game and that’s always important.
“That’s a really good football team. Coach Evans and his staff have done a really good job. For our kids to come in here and play like they did against a good 3-0 football team, I think that says a lot about the character of our young people.”
Some defense and heads up special teams play got LE off to a good start.
The Braves held the Tigers to a three-and-out to start the game. A dropped punt snap led to LE blocking the kick and Justin Marcum scooping up the loose ball and taking it 30 yards for a touchdown less than two minutes into the game.
Marcum then recovered a Circleville fumble inside the LE 20 a few plays later.
Circleville got on the board on its next possession with a 28-yard field goal from Kaden Paxton.
LE answered with a seven-play drive that featured a 34-yard pass from Aaron Walters to Ne’Miah Waugh followed by runs of 11 and 13 yards from Michael Bock to make it 14-3.
Circleville answered with an eight-play drive that ended with Kole Nungester catching a 13-yard touchdown to close the gap to 14-10.
Circleville made a big defensive stand as the Tigers stopped LE on fourth-and-goal with four minutes left in the half.
Unable to get a first down themselves, the Tigers punted the ball back to LE with 1:44 on the clock.
Despite a holding call on first down, the Braves moved down to the two-yard line on six passing plays before Bock wen the last two yards and LE had a 21-10 lead at the half.
Circleville stopped LE on fourth down inside the 20 to start the second half, but again was unable to get a first down and punted the ball back to the Braves,
A good punt left LE 59 yards from the endzone, but the Braves covered it in nine plays with Bock grabbing the last three for a 28-10 advantage.
Circleville came back with a six-play drive that started with a 32-yard pass from Hudson Phalin to Nungester and finished with Phalin throwing a 14-yard scoring pass to Jack Kline.
After the teams traded a couple of possessions, the Tigers had a steady drive going that had them getting to the LE 25. But that’s when Marcum put an exclamation point on his big defensive night.
The Tigers put the ball on the ground on a play-action pass and Marcum won a wrestling match with Phalin for control of the football with 7:21 left in the game.
“Our defense came up huge. Several big turnovers,” Holbert said. “Those are swinging points in a ballgame, momentum killers. I’m just really pleased with the total team effort of our guys.”
LE then ate up almost six minutes as the Braves ran 11 plays – nine rushing plays – and Bock scored his fourth TD of the night as he ran it in the last 12 yards.
Maggie Wilson’s fifth PAT kick of the night wrapped up the game’s scoring with LE up 35-17.
With 47 yards on that final drive, Bock finished the night with 173 yards on 31 carries.
“We know how special Michael is and, especially in the fourth quarter when you know what we’re trying to do – nothing fancy, very predictable, give a tremendous amount of credit to our offensive line and we were able to continuously get chunk plays and keep the clock moving,” Holbert said.
Circleville brought strong pressure against the Braves’ passing game most of the night, but Walters was able to complete 14 of his 27 attempts for 176 yards.
Waugh had three catches for 45 yards, Gavin Hoover had four for 41 and Keegan Diehl had two for 43.
Phalin completed 16 of his 25 attempts for 239 yards. Nungester caught seven balls for 93 yards and Kline caught five for 80.
Logan Elm (3-1, 1-0) will return home to face Fairfield Union (2-2, 1-0) next week while Circleville (3-1, 0-1) heads to Amanda-Clearcreek (2-2, 0-1).
Circleville coach Steve Evans said his team will be reviewing the game film to correct mistakes and concentrating on the Aces.
“Our big thing all season long has been windshield mentality — we’ve got to look through the windshield, we’ve got to look forward, we can’t look behind us,” he said. “I told them we’re still sitting at 3-1, we’ve still got opportunities in front of us.
“We have to take care of ourselves, we have to regroup and get ready to play next week.”
Logan Elm 35, Circleville 17
By Quarters 1 2 3 4 F
Logan Elm 14 7 7 7 35
Circleville 3 7 7 0 17
First Quarter
LE — Justin Marcum 43 punt return (Maggie Wilson kick), 10:03
CV — Kaden Paxton 28 field goal, 3:24.
LE — Michael Bock 13 run (Maggie Wilson kick), 0:15.
Second Quarter
CV — Kole Nungester 13 pass from Hudson Phalin (Kaden Paxton kick), 9:31.
LE — Michael Bock 2 run (Maggie Wilson kick), 0:14.
Third Quarter
LE — Michael Bock 3 run (Maggie Wilson kick), 3:43.
CV — Jack Kline 14 pass from Hudson Phalin (Kaden Paxton kick), 1:40.
Fourth Quarter
LE — Michael Bock 12 run (Maggie Wilson kick), 1:36.
TEAM STATISTICS
LE CV
First downs 20 18
Rushing yards 38-174 28-76
Passing yards 176 239
Comp.-Att.-Int 14-28-0 16-25-0
Total yards 350 315
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 3-2
Penalties-Yards 7-65 7-55
Punts-Ave 3-31 4-25
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING – Logan Elm — Michael Bock 31-173, Aaron Walters 6-1, Cameron Drake 1-0. Circleville — Drew Thornsley 19-83, Hudson Phalin 7-(-11), Ray Ezell 2-4.
PASSING – Logan Elm —Aaron Walters 14-27-0-176, Justin Marcum 0-1-0-0. Circleville— Hudson Phalin 16-25-0-239.
RECEIVING – Logan Elm — Michael Bock 2-17, Joshua Hunter 1-2, Ne’Miah Waugh 3-45, Gavin Hoover 4-41, Justin Marcum 1-15, Keegan Diehl 2-43, Preston Piacentini 1-13. Circleville — Kole Nungester 7-93, Jack Kline 5-80, Drew Thornsley 3-42, Brody Brisker 1-14.
