Danville Blue Devils football struggles in loss to Utica

The Danville football team is not used to a night where misfires were the name of the game.

Add in a fired up opponent who’s clicking on all cylinders and it’s a sure sign of trouble.

The Blue Devils struggled in the red zone and turned the ball over twice Friday, leading to a 27-8 loss to visiting Utica.

“We just couldn’t get stuff going. Couldn’t get out of our own way – whether it was penalties, turnovers,” said Danville coach Matt Blum. “I though they (Utica) played a really good game defensively. We thought we could get to the edge and get some more outside run game going, but they played incredible on the edge.”

The night started well for the Blue Devils (1-1), as they marched right down the field. But, after getting the ball inside the Utica 1-yard line, the Devils couldn’t score, failing on a fourth-down conversion.

Danville’s defense stepped up and gave the team back the ball at midfield. Freshman Briggs Wallace made the Redskins (1-1) pay just four plays later, taking a short pass, breaking several tackles and heading 39 yards for the score.

That would be the last time the Devils got anything going for quite a while.

Utica went on a long scoring drive to close the gap, then hit on a screen pass that went 58-yards for another score to take the lead midway through the second quarter. Redskin quarterback Aaron Hays hit Hunter McKinney on the screen pass, and McKinney went 58 yards for the TD.

Another hookup between Hays and McKinney – this one for 25 yards – put the Redskins up big just before half.

The Devils had a couple of opportunities to chip into the lead, but a fourth-down pass was broken up in the end zone and another fourth-down conversion failed. They were also intercepted in the end zone late in the game.

“We were inside the 1-yard line there in the first quarter and couldn’t score. I know we were inside the 20 and couldn’t score. Then, obviously, at the end of the game, we couldn’t score,” Blum said. “(Our) red zone offense definitely needs to improve, but those are things we’re going to look at on film and evaluate and go from there.”

Hays added a final TD for Utica late in the fourth quarter after an interception by Chris Harris set the Redskins up deep in Danville territory.

Cyren Wallace led the Devils with 77 yards rushing on 13 carries. Briggs Wallace caught two passes for 51 yards and the score, while Aidan Mickley had two catches for 54 yards. Justice Tharp caught three balls for 36 yards and Wesley Payne had three catches for 27 yards. Quarterback Nolan Ridgway completed 18 of 35 passes for 208 yards and a touchdown. But, he was intercepted twice and sacked several times.

Defensively, Jacob Byers led the Devils with 20 tackles. Owen Gronberg added 12 tackles, while Sylas Mizer had 11, Tharp had eight and Chris Mosher seven.

Blum knows the loss was a team loss and to right the ship in time for Lucas next week, it’s going to take the whole team to step up.

“We’re not as good as we think we are – top down. There’s not one single position I can point to and say it was on them. It was legit every single position group. Up front we couldn’t pick up some pressures and couldn’t get any ground game going. Receivers we dropped passes. Quarterbacks we had misreads. Defensively, D-line got upfield. DBs our eyes are in the backfield. We had mistakes all across the board. We’re not good enough right now and we’ve got to get better,” he said. “The old saying is you don’t lose, you learn. It sucks when you lose, but I told these kids their season could go one of two ways. They can either put their foot down and go back to work. We still have a chance to accomplish everything we want to accomplish ahead of us. We can go 9-1, make the playoffs, win some playoff games. But, we’ve got a lot of work to go from here. I challenged them. Told them they have the same opportunity the team did last year when we got beat by Northmor. So, we’re going to see how this team responds.”