CUMBERLAND — Heading into Saturday’s game against Belmont Charter, Fort Hill coach Zack Alkire said establishing the run game and defense were going to be two keys for success.
Both of those areas stood out from the start as the Sentinels overwhelmed the Tigers. Neek Taylor ran for 176 yards and three touchdowns to lead Fort Hill’s 44-8 thrashing in the Sentinels’ home opener at Greenway Avenue Stadium.
“We did pretty well,” Taylor said. “I think our O-line did pretty good. Our defense was amazing too. We got a lot of turnovers.”
Sentinels kicker Bobby Brauer drilled a 25-yard field goal to open the scoring with 6:40 left in the first quarter. Then on the ensuing possession, the Tigers were backed near their own end zone. Tigers quarterback Cabre Boyd bobbled a snap in the end zone and Harley Twigg fell on it for the game’s first touchdown.
That gave Fort Hill (2-0) a 10-0 lead exactly 60 seconds after the field goal.
The mistakes kept piling on for Belmont Charter, which was forced to use all three of its timeouts due to personnel issues. More botched snaps led to a Tigers’ three-and-out at their own 13.
Fort Hill started its next possession at the Belmont 34. After managing just two yards on the first two plays, Channing Logsdon took a third-down pitch 18 yards to the Tigers 7. Carson Bender did the rest on a seven-yard run to make it 17-0 at the 1:35 mark.
A high snap on a Sentinels’ punt put the ball on the 1 and gave the Tigers a golden opportunity to get back into the game. Belmont tried to run it on all four downs, but the drive went in the opposite direction and ended on the 4.
In a complete momentum shift, Taylor took the next play 96 yards to the house. The two-point conversion was unsuccessful, so the score stayed 23-0 Sentinels with 6:51 left in the second quarter.
“It was a 29 sweep,” Taylor said about the touchdown. “I saw the outside, and I saw JP (Jefferson Powell-Morris) block for me. I was like ‘Oh yeah I see green grass, I’m gone.'”
Down three possessions, the Tigers turned to a new signal caller in Haleem Johnson. Belmont then gave it right back to Fort Hill after Johnson faced pressure and threw it into the hands of Owen Walker, who returned it to the Tigers’ 23. The Sentinels cashed in again after Taylor ran 18 yards to the left to make it 30-0 with 5:50 to go in the first half.
Belmont received the second-half kickoff, but another botched snap on a punt gave Fort Hill the ball in the red zone. Taylor then took a counter 16 yards untouched to the end zone for his third score of the night. The Sentinels led 37-0 to trigger a running clock with 8:53 left in the third.
Taylor needed just 10 attempts to get to 176 yards. He now has 299 yards and six touchdowns on the ground after rushing for 123 yards on four attempts in last week’s 48-0 win over Northern Garrett.
“Neek had a great offseason,” Alkire said. “He worked extremely hard in the offseason. He’s a track guy. He comes to track everyday, works his butt off during track, and you can tell he’s a lot more explosive this year. And that’s starting to pay dividends for him. He’s had two really good games so far.”
Fort Hill’s final score came during the 8:45 mark of the fourth quarter when Walker scored from 15 yards out to make it 44-0.
Bender contributed 42 yards on 12 carries while Isaiah Welsh and Logsdon finished with 37 and 34 yards, respectively.
“The hope was to get a really fast start,” Alkire said. “We wanted to get the ball early (and) score early. The big threat was the lightning. We wanted to get this done before the lightning came in. So we were hoping to score early and get the clock running.”
Belmont finally got on the board after Johnson found Aiden Ivory in one-on-one coverage for 64 yards. The Tigers completed the two-point conversion, so the score became 44-8 with just under four minutes left.
Fort Hill will have a short turnaround as it hosts Southern Garrett on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Greenway.