Franklin needed a quarter or so to get its legs back after a long bus ride to New Albany on Friday night, but once it got rolling the host Bulldogs had no answers — especially when it came to Alex Leugers.
The senior running back Alex Leugers rushed for three long touchdowns and added another TD on special teams, as the Grizzly Cubs scored 40 unanswered points to pull away for a 47-6 victory at New Albany on Friday night.
“They don’t have a whole lot of depth,” Franklin coach Chris Coll said of the Bulldogs. “I think they had quite a few kids going both ways, and the second half I think we just kind of wore them down.”
The Grizzly Cubs struggled out of the gate, coming out of the first quarter in a 3-0 hole after a New Albany field goal. But Leugers got the visitors on the board with a 72-yard touchdown run in the second period, and he scored on a 90-yard kickoff return after another Bulldog field goal that helped his team to a 13-6 halftime edge.
The second half was all Franklin.
Junior quarterback Greyson Betts opened the floodgates with an 8-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Cory Tonte that made it a 20-6 lead, and Leugers followed with a 50-yard scoring run. Betts then capped the third-quarter scoring with a 21-yard keeper to push it to 33-6.
Leugers then tacked on a 39-yard TD run, and after a long interception return by senior linebacker Isaac Broughton, Tonte finished off the rout by hitting paydirt from 14 yards out.
“It was a good opener,” Coll said. “Handling what basically amounts to a two-hour bus ride, I think we handled things pretty well. Our maturity and leadership was pretty good for a trip like that in Week 1. We know what we’ve got coming next week with Mt. Vernon; that’s a tough one for us, so we’ll see. I think if we grow from this week, we’ll be all right.”
