A quick glance at Friday’s stat sheet might indicate Roncalli’s football team struggled a bit against host Cincinnati Elder.
A fact check would likely return with the finding: “True, but misleading.”
The visiting Royals were outgained 338 yards to 329 and they allowed the host Panthers 24 non-penalty first downs while collecting just 10 themselves. But Roncalli made more big plays and its defense stalled Elder’s drives, which translated to a 35-21 victory.
Roncalli, ranked atop the Class 4A poll, improved to 8-0 and extended its win streak to 20, dating back to Sept. 4 of last year. Elder, a two-time Ohio state champion that edged rival Archbishop Moeller 59-58 last week, fell to 3-5.
The game was a homecoming of sorts for Royals coach John Rodenberg, who coached at four Cincinnati-area schools, including Moeller. He knew all about Elder, its 10,000-seat stadium named The Pit, and the Panthers’ West Coast offense, but was glad the Royals were able to overcome Elder’s high-powered attack.
“We weren’t going to keep this team under 300 yards,” Rodenberg said of Elder. “We weren’t going to stop them, but we played good team football.”
Big plays proved to be the difference for the Royals. Kyle Lockard caught touchdown passes of 65 and 55 yards en route to six catches overall for 163 yards.
Luke Hansen, running behind the Royals’ highly touted offensive line, had a relatively quiet first three quarters (43 yards on 10 carries), but he broke loose in the fourth period. His 28-yard run on the first play from scrimmage with seven minutes to play kick-started what proved to be Roncalli’s game-clinching touchdown drive. Elder had cut the Royals’ lead to 21-14 on its previous possession, and Hansen’s big run triggered a seven-play, 80-yard Roncalli touchdown march. Caden Gore ended that one with his own big play, a 38-yard run off left tackle with 4:24 left to extend the Royals’ lead to 28-14.
Then, after the Panthers scored again with 3:07 left to whittle Roncalli’s lead to 28-21, Hansen broke loose for a 30-yard run on Roncalli’s first play from scrimmage. That set up an Aidan Leffler 15-yard touchdown run three plays later to conclude the game’s scoring.
Hansen finished with 111 yards on just 16 carries. Sixty-eight of those yards came in the fourth quarter.
“That’s the heart and soul of our team,” Rodenberg said. “Our O-line’s special, and we hang our hat on that.”
Defensively, the Royals’ Tyson Garrett hauled in a pair of interceptions. One stalled an Elder drive at the Roncalli 29-yard line late in the third quarter, and the other came on the Panthers’ futile final drive with about a minute to play.
“Tyson was huge,” Rodenberg said. “He’s an all-state player and he came up big. We had to make big plays like that.”
Elder quarterback Ben Hambleton kept Roncalli’s secondary busy. He completed 37 of 50 passes for 318 yards but threw just one touchdown pass to go with Garrett’s two interceptions. He averaged 6.4 yards per attempt.
Leffler attempted just 18 passes, completing eight, but compiled 167 yards for a much more efficient 11.1 yards per attempt.
Roncalli returns home next Friday to play another Cincinnati-area foe, Class 4A No. 4 East Central.
