Hillsboro redeems itself with 38-0 shutout

With the bitter taste of last week’s opening loss still fresh in their mouths, the Trojans 1-1 got a nice dose of confidence Friday night — mauling the hosting Lyons Lions, 38-0.

Trojan coach Max Heinrichs stressed an emphasis on shoring up the ground game and on Friday, Hillsboro ran over and around the bigger Lions, piling up 233 yards on 41 carries.

“That’s a little better,” Heinrichs said of Hillsboro’s performance. “I didn’t think it would be this easy. They (Lyons) are a very big team and you could see plays where they totally dominated us.

“We really worked on the running game a lot. We cleaned up some blocking schemes and cleaned up some things. We got the kids thinking and talking, which they didn’t do the first game. I’m pretty proud of our kids.”

If there was any knock against the Trojans game this week, it was only the PAT kicks, with the Lyons blocking three of five attempts.

Outside of that, it was all Hillsboro all night.

The Trojans wasted little time pulling away after impeding Lyons to a negative 13 yards on its opening drive.

Facing a fourth-and-12, Luke Moore hit Dylan Delk for a 15-yard touchdown. Delk’s four catches gave him a team-high 73 yards receiving with Hillsboro picking up 139 yards through the air.

Ben Gardner’s first PAT was good and Hillsboro took a 7-0 lead nearly midway through the first quarter.

Of the Trojans five, first-half possessions, only one started in their own territory and of the seven for the game, six of them ended in Hillsboro touchdowns.

Not one started any deeper than the Hillsboro 38 while Lyons had to contend with a long field the full 48 minutes.

It didn’t hurt that the Lions gift-wrapped 21 points for Hillsboro with three turnovers — two being interceptions by Gardner.

The Trojans made it a 13-0 game, cashing in on a pick by Gardner, which set up a first-and-goal at the Lion 5.

Caleb Hilliard scored on back-to-back possessions with runs of 5 and 6 yards, helping stretch Hillsboro’s lead to 19-0 five seconds into the second quarter.

Hilliard and Chance Reece combined for 116 yards rushing with Reece’s game-high 63 leading the nine other backs who had carries.

Ben Bebermeyer had an interception, too, which would’ve gone for a 29-yard touchdown return had it not been negated by a block-in-the-back call on the Trojans.

Lyons never crossed midfield until the halfway mark of the second quarter and that drive was fumbled away with Ethan Frantz recovering.

After it was all over, the Lions could only muster a paltry 119 yards total with the ground game going for just 94.

With the game slipping away for the Lions by halftime, Heinrichs gave everyone playing time.

Sophomore reserve quarterback Lucas Sinclair fired for Aaron Klassen on a 40-yard completion and widened the gap to 25-0.

The Trojans had the lid blown off by the break with a commanding 31-0 lead after Moore scored on a 4-yard quarterback keeper.

Gardner put the icing on the cake with the final touchdown, taking it on a 15-yard run barely 1:30 into the second half, forcing the clock to continue to run.

Lyons did actually engineer a drive, which could’ve ended in points with the help of a 36-yard run by speedy tailback Michael Vincent — by far the Lions’ longest play of the game.

The Lions drove all the way to the Trojan 29 before Gardner’s final pick wiped that out.

Hillsboro’s junior varsity showed promise, too.

They kept the Lion defense on the field the final three minutes of the third quarter before turning over the ball on downs inside the Lyons’ 30 with less than five minutes left in the game.

“We told the kids just to keep believing, we’re still a good team,” Heinrichs said. “They (Halstead) are one of the best teams we’ll play this year and we really believe that.

“We feel pretty confident and we’ll get better next week. We feel like we have a pretty good team right now. We could’ve thrown for a couple more touchdowns, but I just kept running it at them.”

The Trojans return home Friday night to host Sterling in a 7 p.m. kickoff at Joel H. Wiens Stadium.