By DERRELL COMER
Register Correspondent
SANTO — After a one hour delay due to thunderstorms with lightning, the Era Hornets beat the Santo Wildcats 41-14 in the first road game of the season for the Hornets.
The Wildcats struck first in this game with a 6-yard touchdown run after an Era turnover. The PAT failed and the Wildcats had an early 6-0 lead.
That lead would soon disappear as Hornet Jace Sutton returned the ensuing Wildcat kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 6-6 with 3:02 remaining in the first quarter.
The Hornets would strike again on the first play of the second quarter on a Nathan Metzler 11- yard touchdown run. The Hornets elected to go for the two point conversion attempt and Hornet quarterback Trey Dunn hooked up with Justin Lance for the successful conversion making the score 14-6.
On the next Wildcat possession, Dunn picked off an errant Wildcat pass at the 21-yard line in Hornet territory. The Hornet offense then put together an 11-play scoring drive capped off by a 15-yard touchdown pass from Dunn to Codie Hope. With the successful PAT by Metzler, the Hornet lead stood at 21-6 with 3:26 remaining in the first half.
After the Hornet defense again shut down the Wildcat offense, the Hornet offense went to work covering 55 yards in just 41 seconds culminating with a Dunn to Metzler touchdown pass with 2 seconds remaining in the half. The PAT was no good and the halftime score stood at 27-6 in favor of the Hornets.
The second half began similar to the first half with the Wildcats taking advantage of a Hornet miscue and driving 22-yards for a touchdown. With a successful two-point conversion, the Wildcats closed the gap to 27-14 but that was as close as they would get.
As in the first half, on the ensuing kickoff by the Wildcats the Hornets answered right back by returning the kickoff for a touchdown as Metzler returned the kick 80 yards for the score. With the successful PAT by Metzler the Hornets had extended their lead to 34-14.
The Hornets were not finished scoring as they put together a 7-play touchdown drive capped off with an 11-yard touchdown pass from Dunn to James Rusk in the fourth quarter. With the successful PAT by Metzler the Hornets took a 41-14 lead with 10:07 remaining in the game.
After the Hornet defense forced another three plays and out by the Wildcat offense the Hornets put together a 10-play drive that chewed up nearly six minutes off the clock. In the fourth quarter the Hornets limited the Wildcat offense to seven plays with the Hornets’ Justin Harp recovering a Wildcat fumble on the seventh and final offensive play of the game for the Wildcats to help preserve Hornet victory and final score of 41-14.
The Hornet offense was led by a balanced rushing attack with Rafael Amparan, Dunn, Sutton, Metzler and Gates Anderson combining to rush for 191 yards. Dunn led the Hornet passing attack, completing four of his eight passes with three of the pass completions going for touchdowns. Metzler, Hope and Rusk each had a touchdown reception for the Hornets.
In addition to their 252 yards of offense, the Hornets also had 170 kickoff return yards on just three attempts with Metzler accounting for 95 of the return yards on two attempts and a touchdown while Sutton had 75 return yards on one attempt and a touchdown.
With the win the Hornets improved their season record to 2-0.
