The Langford Area football team ended its abbreviated season on a high note on Friday by trouncing North Central 40-14.
Due to low numbers this season the Lions were forced to play a junior varsity schedule and had just four contests – two of them wins over North Central and a pair of losses to Tri-State.
“I saw a lot of improvement as our season went on,” said LA coach Michael Alberts, who had just 15 players on his roster with three of them eighth graders and just one senior and a pair of juniors. “I saw our team get better, but I also saw individuals get a lot better. We did a lot of good things on both sides of the ball this year and I am proud of the boys for sticking together and making this season the best we could.”
An opportunistic Lions club took advantage of five North Central turnovers and dominated the second half to posts its second win of the season. The first of those turnovers came midway through the opening period on a high punt snap and LA took over on the North Central 17. Three plays later Caleb Mertz grabbed an 11-yard Kalen Godel pass and the Lions led 8-0.
North Central used a LA fumble to find paydirt later in the period and cut the margin to 8-7, but then Skylar Godel ran the kickoff back 85 yards for a 14-7 margin after one quarter.
North Central drove to the LA 20 in the second period but a fumble ended the threat and neither team mounted a serious scoring threat the rest of the half. Lightning struck for North Central to open the second half when the Thunder ran the kickoff back for a touchdown to tie the score at 14-all. But then the Lions roared and dominated the game the rest of the way.
North Central ran just a single play from scrimmage the entire third period and just two plays in the first half of the final stanza as the Lions recovered an onside kick and a pair of fumbles. Meanwhile, Langford Area put up a pair of third quarter scores on a Kalen Godel run and a TD pass from Godel to Mertz to lead 26-14.
A16-yard Godel run with 5:59 to play pretty much put the game away at 34-14 and then Conner Glines broke an 82-yard run to put some icing on the cake.
“I thought we played pretty good defense the whole game,” said Alberts. “We were able to create turnovers which led to points on our end. Offensively, we had a slow start in the first half, but in the second half we did a lot of good things and controlled the ball for most of the half. We were able to run the ball well which also helped us in the passing game.”
