For only the ninth time since 1994 and first time since 2016, the Edinburgh football team has come through with three wins in a season.
Edinburgh jumped out early and held on for a 52-14 win over the visiting Indianapolis Crimson Knights, a home-school team from the southside.
Big steps for a Lancers team that has only won two games in the past three seasons.
“It’s a great feeling to have the kids get all three wins at home,” Edinburgh coach Tyler DeSpain said.
Palmeter, who last week set a new single-season school passing record for yardage with 1,860, easily eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark with another fine performance through the air.
Palmeter tossed for 283 yards and four touchdowns to bring his total to 28 TDs for the season, also a school record.
Edinburgh scored twice in the first quarter as Palmeter hit Caleb Dewey from 15 yards and then Streeval on a 56-yard bomb before the visitors could do anything about it.
The Crimson Knights, while appearing to have a potent passing game themselves, kept the ball on the ground for most of the first half, as quarterback Chris Cline kept handing the ball off to big 6-0 senior Ethan Click. But they did use the pass for their first-half score as Cline, who misfired on his first five passes, finally found the mark with a 25-yard score to Nathan Clark.
Inexplicably, Edinburgh tried an onside kick at the beginning of the second half, giving the Crimson Knights the ball at the Lancers’ 45. With a short field, the visitors drove and scored on a Click 5-yard run. The conversion by Cline made the score 19-14 and might have made everyone question the call, but DeSpain defended the decision.
“Anytime you risk something like that, you could get a big reward,” DeSpain said. “Obviously it was a big risk, but I wouldn’t take it back.
The risk didn’t turn out so bad, as Edinburgh soon scored again when Palmeter hit a wide-open Braylon Bryant for a 30-yard score. A two-point conversion gave the Lancers some space, and they continued to improve.
Both Streeval and Palmeter ran in for 1-yard touchdowns and Palmeter also had an 85-yard interception return for a TD to give the Lancers not only their third win, but their fourth 40-point game this season and their first with 50.
Streeval ran in for the final Edinburgh score from 12 yards and Dewey caught eight passes, going over the 1,000-yard mark for the season in the process.
If not for two close losses earlier this season to Tindley and Oldenburg Academy, and the Lancers might be 5-4 and not 3-6.
Click led the Crimson Knights with 143 yards rushing, but the ball was largely out of his hands once the Lancers took a big lead.
It wasn’t all offense; Edinburgh’s defense provided the lift that ultimately carried them to the win.
Late in the first half, the Crimson Knights drove to the Edinburgh 7-yard line thanks in huge part to a pair of 15-yard penalties. But the ball then started going in reverse. Click was dropped for a 3-yard loss and the Crimson Knights were guilty of a motion penalty themselves.
Clark then threw two consecutive incompletions, and the Lancers didn’t surrender a point on the drive.
“I told the kids that we really needed to be up by 13 at halftime,” DeSpain said. “They really buckled down and I told them we have some rewards for them if they play well in the second half, and they saw what happened.”
While this win was as sweet and the other two, getting No. 4 is going to be a mighty and difficult task, as Edinburgh begins the Class A sectional at home against No. 5 Covenant Christian (9-0).
But it’s not an impossible task. Especially if the air show continues.
