St. Charles football loses to Great Mills

“It went pretty good,” said Great Mills senior tight end Troy Herbert, who scored a touchdown and added two 2-point conversions. “I tried to work on picking up the crossers and stopping the crossing routes. I tried to be aggressive and run the ball up the middle, and catch the ball when it was thrown to me. We got our interceptions by being in the right spots, being disciplined and getting good pressure to get the quarterback to throw the ball. My plan is to beat Leonardtown to be county champs and to beat North Point the last game of the season.”

“It felt good. It’s been a long time since we won homecoming,” Hornets head coach Tyrone Bell said. “My first year we almost won homecoming and we had to give the game up because we had a player that was ineligible that ended up playing that we didn’t know about. But to finally get one in the record books with everything going on this season and all the turmoil and everything that happened last week it feels great. It really does.”

The game was scoreless until the third quarter when St. Charles senior quarterback Kameron Blount ran 14 yards for a touchdown. Junior kicker AJ White’s extra point failed and the score stood at 6-0 Spartans.

Great Mills (2-6, 2-2 SMAC Potomac) needed just 19 seconds to answer as senior running back Martrel Mason had the Hornets’ first touchdown of the night on a 78-yard run. Mason rushed for 203 yards on the night on 24 attempts.

“The game went very good,” Mason said. “I just wanted to win the game. It felt good because we had a lot of fans here. I want to win these last two games and go all the way.”

Hornets quarterback Terrel London then found Jamari Jordan in the end zone for the 2-point conversion to give the Hornets an 8-6 lead with 8 minutes 39 seconds to go in the third quarter.

“Mason and London are just good guys, they really are,” Bell said. “They’re knuckleheads like always, they’re young and they’re going to do dumb things, but when they really come on, nobody can stop them. And I love that part about it. They’re playing real well, they’re getting the tempo. They’re embracing the offense and defense and the coaching, so it just feels really well being around them.”

Great Mills added to its lead when London found senior tight end Troy Herbert with a 27-yard touchdown pass with 3:21 left in the third. The 2-point conversion was good with London hitting Herbert again with a pass in the end zone, giving the Hornets a 16-6 lead.

Neither team scored in the fourth quarter and the Hornets picked up the win. Fans went crazy and the team rushed the field and poured a bucket of icy water on Bell.

“The blocking was there,” said St. Charles senior running back Jalen Shanks, who had 52 yards on 7 attempts. “We were able to find some holes and run. Unfortunately the game didn’t go in our favor. I was just playing with my heart, that’s all that I could do. I wanted to win, so we had to make the plays. We’re just going to put this game behind us and still focus on winning out, to make the playoffs.”

St. Charles (6-2, 2-2) lost for the second straight week and host Chopticon at 7 p.m. Friday. The Braves (2-6, 1-3) lost to Huntingtown in Week 8, 41-0.

“Well, it did not go well,” St. Charles head coach Patrick Orndoff said. “We left a lot of the yards and potential points on the field with the penalties. We did a lot of things poorly tonight. They did a lot of things properly tonight. They came out fired up for their homecoming. It just didn’t work out the way we wanted it. We’re 6-2 now and we move on to Chopticon next week. We hope this doesn’t knock us out of the playoffs. We’ve got Chopticon next week and we will see how we can go from there.”

Great Mills hosts Leonardtown at 6 p.m. Friday. The Raiders (0-8, 0-5) were blanked by North Point in Week 8, 41-0.

“We have two games left. It means we have two wins and we won homecoming,” Bell said. “We got Leonardtown next week, another opponent, and North Point at the end of the season. So, our focus right now is how we’re going to beat Leonardtown.”

Twitter: @stoeckercolinw