It was a slow grind in a quickly set up road game between Daviess County and Floyd Central, with the Panthers coming out on top in overtime 21-14.
Floyd Central wasted no time getting things going, scoring via a two-yard rushing touchdown from Tristan Robertson on their opening drive to take a 7-0 lead with 7:18 left in the first quarter.
Daviess County didn’t get much of an opportunity to settle in offensively, only getting one drive in the first quarter.
It wasn’t until the second quarter that they were able to find their groove, as senior quarterback Joe Humphreys found senior Max Dees for a 30-yard touchdown to knot things up at 7-7 with 5:50 left in the first half.
Neither offense was able to find the endzone again in the quarter, sending both teams to the locker room knotted up at seven.
The game remained at a stalemate for a large portion of the third quarter, but it was the Panthers who put one on the board first in the second half while grabbing its first lead of the night.
Capping off an 81-yard and seven-play drive, Humphreys hit senior Carter Hamilton for a 45-yard touchdown to make it a 14-7 game with 3:14 left in the third quarter.
After forcing Floyd Central to punt, Daviess County took over on offense looking to separate themselves and expand on its lead.
However, Floyd Central’s Max Grangier picked off Humphreys on the first play of the drive and took it 20 yards for a pick-six. This knotted things up at 14-14 going into the fourth quarter.
Neither team could string together much offense together in the fourth, but with 55 seconds left on the clock Floyd Central was set for one last drive on their own 44.
The Panthers quickly shifted momentum later in the drive, as Dees intercepted a pass and they found themselves at their own 37 with 13.6 seconds left to play. However, Daviess County couldn’t muster its way to the endzone, sending the game to overtime.
The Panthers hadn’t been able to sustain much of a running game all night, with their lead back senior Gunnar Evans only rushing for about 40 yards before overtime.
Despite this, Evans continued to work and he made another rushing attempt count when it mattered most.
Evans found a hole in the defense and never looked back on Daviess County’s first drive, taking a handoff 10 yards and finding the endzone to make it 21-14.
Floyd Central got one last chance to knot things up, but the Panthers defense held strong to secure the big road victory.
Given that the game was scheduled Thursday night after Ohio County had to go into quarantine, Daviess County didn’t have much time to prepare for its opponent.
Head Coach Matt Brannon said it showed the character and talent his guys have to pull off this win with little preparation and that it was an intense and rewarding experience on the road.
“It was a great experience,” Brannon said. “I think it definitely was a playoff-like atmosphere. [They had] a good crowd and a tradition-rich program. It was a tough physical game.”
Brannon and company thought they were going to be a spread team, but they were met with a heavy ground game.
However, the Panthers defense quickly made the changes necessary and they believe the ability to adjust like this will make them a threat as the season progresses.
“We quickly adjusted to that, which was nice for our defensive staff to make those changes on the fly,” Brannon said. “Those are the kind of things that are going to help us get into the postseason.”
The Panthers were battling some injuries defensively, but Brannon said they had players step up, played physical and tackled well all night.
Despite finishing the game with 344 passing yards on 30-50 attempts to go with two passing touchdowns, Humphreys struggled at times, finishing with four interceptions on the night.
Brannon said his receivers stepped up in a big way when they needed it, helping them be successful offensively.
“When your quarterback, who you’re accustomed to making great plays and being on target all night, when he’s struggling a little bit it’s good to have people there to pick him up,” Brannon said. “Max Dees did an excellent job of kind of bailing him out on some plays with some great catches and Renfrow played really well late in the game as well.”
Dees led the way 107 receiving yards on 10 catches to go with one touchdown, Hamilton finished with 95 yards on six catches with a touchdown and junior Decker Renfrow followed closely behind with 94 yards on eight catches.
The win moves Daviess County to 3-1 on the season, as they will have another tough road matchup with Madisonville-North Hopkins next week.
Now the focus for the Panthers is to cut down on penalties and limit turnovers going into the matchup with the Maroons that will kick off at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17.
“It’s more about us and fixing the mistakes that we made,” Brannon said. “A lot of penalties again… Officials call games differently in different places, so we’ve gotta clean that up. We still had a costly fumble and those four interceptions don’t help, so we’ve gotta continue to work on being able to protect the football… Really it’s just going into this week we’ve gotta clean up things for us and our coaches will put together a gameplan this weekend and we’ll be ready to go.”
