Things were going sideways for Simon Kenton in the first half.
Five turnovers, an injured quarterback and a 19-7 halftime deficit.
But the Pioneers figured things out, stopped Dixie Heights aerial attack and scored 22 unanswered in the second half for a 29-19 victory over the Colonels.
They even huddled on offense.
“We haven’t done that in 10 years,” Pioneers coach Roy Lucas said.
Brady Lee entered in at quarterback in the second half with Tucker Ober injured and helped orchestrate three scoring drives. The big thing was in the final 24 minutes, they didn’t turn the ball over to Dixie Heights.
“We needed to do something different at halftime. Have a lot of young kids on offense and needed to settle them down,” Lucas said. “We couldn’t have played much worse on offense in the first half and we were still in the football game. Had to protect the quarterback better and did that a little bit better, ran the ball better and it paid off.”
Rather, the tides turned due to a lot of self inflicted wounds by Dixie Heights. A myriad of penalties consistently put them behind the chains in the second half. In fact, Dixie Heights had more penalty yards than yards from scrimmage in the second half; nine penalties for 75 yards, 21 plays for 45 yards.
“We played undisciplined football,” Colonels coach Pat Burke said. “It was just constant penalty after penalty after penalty and we shot ourselves in the foot.”
The Colonels finished with 17 penalties for 135 yards.
While they were up 19-7 at halftime, things could have blown open more for the Colonels.
As Armani Gregg found his rhythm with 153 first half passing yards, it could have been well over 200 yards if it weren’t for dropped passes, two of them that could have been touchdowns.
The first score came on a Gregg pass to Hudson Blank for a six-yard touchdown to make it 6-0 with 7:16 left in the first.
A Pioneers fumble then put them at the 26, but a couple of drops and penalties meant no damage done on a failed drive.
Simon Kenton responded with a touchdown pass from Tucker Ober to Carter Blades for a 25-yard connection and a 7-6 Pioneers lead with 2:37 left in the first.
After a stalled drive in Pioneers territory, the Colonels then forced turnovers on the next four Simon Kenton possessions, two interceptions by Miguel Rodriguez and one from Riley McGrath while Max Neal recovered a fumble. Brach Rice had recovered a fumble earlier in the game.
The Colonels didn’t take advantage though until the third turnover as Gregg QB sneaked one in from a yard out to make it 12-7 with 3:47 left before halftime.
They’d add another score before the half on a Lamiego Mutongwiza three-yard run with 1:20 left.
Then halftime hit and a team still trying to figure things out after a 3-8 season in 2022 got in their own way.
A stop on fourth and two out of the half near midfield got the momentum on the Pioneers side.
After a drive ended inside the Colonels five, they forced a punt from the Colonels own end zone and only needed 18 yards for a score when Lee hit Nathan Kitchens for a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage to make it 19-14 Colonels with 5:14 left in the third.
This was Lee’s first varsity action as a junior. He finished 4-for-4 passing for 83 yards and a touchdown and ran for 19 more yards and a touchdown.
“I was a little nervous at first, but my teammates had my back and this feels really good,” Lee said. “We have great playmakers on offense that can go and make plays.”
A costly turnover set up the Pioneers next score, a muffed punt giving the Pioneers the ball at the Colonels 13. Five plays later, Landon Brown found paydirt from four yards out to give them a 22-19 lead with 10:18 remaining.
Aba Selm and the offensive line up front started imposing their will. The Pioneers had 174 yards of offense in the second half.
“We started picking up more reads, figuring out where they were blitzing from, who’s coming, who’s not. Easy, simple things that we should have picked up in the first half, but we didn’t and then executed it perfectly in the second half,” Selm said.
Lee’s five-yard touchdown run with 6:01 left put the exclamation point on the Pioneers victory, a gut check one at that in the first game of the season.
“As young as we are, especially on offense and for the kids to answer it was great,” Lucas said. “Defense played well the whole time, offense just didn’t help them in the first half. They responded and took it to another level in the second half.”
Dixie Heights left Independence feeling like “they were the better team”, Burke said, but on the positive, most of the mistakes made on Friday night in the opener were correctable.
“I think we have a solid football team. But until we get discipline, until we handle our character a little better, we’re not going to be a great football team,” Burke said. “We certainly have the tools and the talent. I thought our team was ready to compete at a higher level tonight and that’s on me. I’ll take the blame and move on.”
Gregg finished with 179 yards passing with a passing and rushing touchdown. Tyson Beach was his top target finishing with four catches for 90 yards.
The Pioneers play at Woodford County next week while Dixie Heights plays at Hughes (OH).
PIONEERS 29, COLONELS 19
DIXIE HEIGHTS — 6-13-0-0 — 19
SIMON KENTON — 7-0-7-15 — 29
Scoring Plays
1st Quarter
(DH) Gregg six-yard pass to Blank (7:12) Pass failed
(SK) Ober 25-yard pass to Blades (2:37) Garnett kick
2nd Quarter
(DH) Gregg 1-yard run (3:47) Kick failed
(DH) Mutongwiza 3-yard run (1:20) Kohls kick
3rd Quarter
(SK) Lee 18-yard pass to Kitchens (5:14) Garnett kick
4th Quarter
(SK) Brown 4-yard run (10:18) Lee run
(SK) Lee 5-yard run (6:01) Garnett kick
Game Stats
Passing Yards: Dixie Heights 179 (Gregg 12/24, TD), Simon Kenton 127 (Lee 4/4, TD, Ober 3/11, TD)
Rushing Yards: Dixie Heights 62 (Gregg 11-28, Mutongwiza 13-24, Beach 2-8, Rice 4-2), Simon Kenton 161 (Turner 9-74, Brown 10-36, Bleier 3-21, Lee 14-19, Harris 1-12, Weaver 1-10, Ober 8-(minus) 1, Giordano 2-(minus) 10)
Receiving: Dixie Heights (Beach 4-90, Kriger 1-37, Blank 2-15, Rice 1-14, Anderson 2-12, Goetz 1-7, Mutongwiza 1-4), Simon Kenton (Weaver 2-64, Blades 2-36, Kitchens 1-18, Harris 2-9)
Turnovers: Dixie Heights 1, Simon Kenton 5
Penalties: Dixie Heights 17-135, Simon Kenton 5-35
Records: Dixie Heights 0-1, Simon Kenton 1-0