Elizabethtown traveled to Bardstown to fight it out for two unbeaten District opponents and the Panthers came away winners in a big way. It may be safe to say that midway through the second quarter, Elizabethtown pretty much dominated the Tigers in everyway possible and left little question who was the better team that night.
What did the Panthers do right? Everything starting with their first possession after Tiger quarterback Brady Clark was intercepted on the games third play and a penalty on the return set up Elizabethtown in the red zone. Elizabethtown scored on that possession and did so on the next three in the first half as they didn’t surrender the ball until late in the second half.
Elizabethtown quarterback Clay Games completed 10-of-13 passes for 184-yards and three touchdowns and was able to mix run and pass beautifully keeping Bardstown off balance all night long. After Games scored the first Touchdown on a quarterback sneak, the Panthers took advantage of the second of four Tiger turnovers in the half and traveled 80-yards to another touchdown on a drive that began near the end of the first quarter and continued in the second to another score when Games completed a Trey Prather, who was embarassingly open for a 14-0 lead.
After forcing a Tiger punt on their next possession, Elizabethtown went 98-yards to another score to make it 20-0 with 3:26 before half. Elizabethtown intercepted Clark on a long pass and then upped the score to 27-0 with a swing pass with 1:34 left before the half.
What went wrong for Bardstown? Everything. Clark’s interception on the opening drive set up the first E-town score along with a personal foul to move them closer. After the Tigers drove down field, Clark appeared to have completed a touchdown pass, but it was dropped and then he aimed a pass in a crowd and it was picked off setting up a long Panther scoring drive. Clark would suffer another interception before the half and their second best chance to get on the board disappeared when a fumble killed their drive just before the half.
After that, Elizabethtown used their powerful ground game to wear down the Bardstown defense in the second half as they scored near the end of the third quarter to make it 33-0 until Bardstown finally got on the board in the fourth.
It was just one of those nights where everything went the Panthers way as they ran a flawless offensive game plan rolling up 222-yards rushing behind Camran McNeil (108-yards / 1-TD) and the defense simply won the turnover battle (4-0) and three led to touchdowns. So head coach Ross Brown comes away with a 33-6 win and Tiger coach David Clark will have to watch the video tape and figure out what went wrong.
Going into this game, there was a lot of talk about the strength of schedule of both teams as neither played a grueling one and what would happen during the game. At least now they both have a measuring stick to go by and what might happen if they are to meet in four weeks in a more important setting.
For Elizabethtown, it might be hard to improve on last night’s performance as they played as close to a perfect game as possible.
