Franklin’s Alex Leugers runs the ball during Friday’s game against visiting Perry Meridian.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
Scoring chances were far from plentiful on Friday night for Perry Meridian and Franklin. In the end, the Grizzly Cubs squandered one too many.
Mistakes crippled a Franklin offense that amassed 223 rushing yards despite getting just seven possessions, allowing the visiting Falcons to hold on for a 12-7 triumph in the Mid-State Conference opener for both teams.
“There was times where we kind of got in a groove and moved the ball, but we’d shoot ourselves in the foot,” Franklin coach Chris Coll said. “It’s part of growing up as a team. … Their offense did a good job of eating up a lot of clock; I don’t know how many possessions we ended up with, but it wasn’t a lot. And when you get in a game like that, you can’t make those mistakes, because you’re not going to get that many opportunities.”
Franklin (2-1, 0-1) opened the game with a defensive stop courtesy of Thristian Shannon’s third-down sack, and a 20-yard pass from Greyson Betts to Alex Leugers set the Grizzly Cub offense up with first and goal at the 7. On the next play, however, Leugers was stripped of the ball inside the 1-yard line and the Falcons recovered.
Pinned against the goal line after three false start penalties in a row, Perry (2-1, 1-0) calmly embarked on a 13-play drive to cover the 99-plus yards in front of them. Eight straight runs set Allen Zupan up to throw back-to-back completions to get to the Franklin 21, and three plays later he found Ethan Neffle in the back of the end zone for an 18-yard touchdown that put the Falcons up 6-0 with 9:24 left in the first half.
After Franklin went three and out, Perry Meridian struck again. A 20-yard Zupan scramble with a late hit flag tacked on put the visitors at the Grizzly Cubs’ 14, and three plays after the Falcon quarterback converted a fourth down with a keeper, he wiggled through the Franklin defense again for an 8-yard scoring run on third and goal, doubling the margin with 1:49 to go before the break.
The Falcons got another shot to score in the closing seconds of the half, but Zupan’s heave to the end zone was intercepted by Franklin senior Landen Basey.
Stymied in the first half to the tune of 34 yards on nine carries in the first half, Leugers made his presence felt on the second play of the third period, finding a seam up the middle and outrunning the Perry secondary for a 78-yard touchdown. Matt Payne’s extra point cut the deficit to 12-7, which loomed large after the visitors missed their first two PATs.
Leugers ended the night with 192 yards rushing on 27 carries after a big second half.
“It wasn’t like we came in and invented something,” Coll said of halftime adjustments to help get his star running back going. “We just figured out how we wanted to run at them. … We kind of felt like the second half, we needed to come out and really rely on the run game, and we had a couple of different things we thought would work, and they did.”
A Falcon punt stuck the Grizzly Cubs at their own 1-yard line, but they were able to create some breathing room with a series of runs. Perry Meridian managed to strip Leugers for a second time as he crossed midfield, however, extinguishing a golden opportunity for Franklin to claim the lead.
The Grizzly Cub defense created another by forcing a punt with 10:29 left, and the offense marched deliberately up the field with nine consecutive running plays, the last a 7-yarder by Isaiah Stultz to set up first and goal at the Perry 10. A pair of penalties pushed the ball back to the 30, though, and Franklin turned it over on downs after a fourth-down heave to the end zone fell incomplete with 3:44 on the clock.
A fourth-down conversion allowed the Falcons to kill off the remaining time.
Franklin will try to turn the page and move on to a Week 4 rivalry game at Whiteland.
“They’re at home, they’re going to be fired up, all that stuff,” Coll said of the Warriors. “But we’ve got to spend four days trying to get better at what we do and trying to figure out who’s progressing, who’s stepping up and how to best use them in all areas.”
