Faith Academy football crushes Giddings Lonestar
CAPTION: Faith Academy sophomore Landon Silvers got the scoring going early and often in helping the Flames earn their fourth win this season. Photo by Stennis Shotts
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls football team shut out Giddings Lonestar Southeast 45-0 Sept. 26 in a non-district contest that took two quarters to decide.
“The defense did a great job,” Flames head coach Jay Silvers said. “Shutting anybody out in six-man football is a hard thing to do. So they did a great job there. Special teams did a good job. Offense was clicking again. We just kind of posed our will on offense on what we wanted to do.”
The Flames (4-1) got the scoring going immediately when sophomore Landon Silvers took the opening kickoff 71 yards for the touchdown. Senior Adam Merlick caught the three-yard pass from sophomore Egan Barnes on the one-point throw for the 7-0 lead.
“So it’s the first time they’ve kicked it (to Landon). I think teams know him,” coach Silvers said. “Teams that we’ve played know him sitting back, and (Lone Star has) never played us. (My son is) pretty lethal back there in a kickoff return. You don’t want to kick it to him too often.”
Following a Lone Star turnover on downs, senior Andrew Houy added a 78-yard rushing touchdown and Barnes kicked the two-point conversion for the 15-0 advantage.
“His first offensive play, he ran a 78-yard touchdown run,” the coach said. “We had just stopped a goal line on defense. That was that goal line stand, and then he took off, and he left them.”
Landon Silvers added his second touchdown when he caught a 22-yard pass from junior Wade Dillard. Senior Ben Strmiska added the two-point kick for the 23-0 lead at the end of the first half.
Merlick caught a 40-yard touchdown pass from Silvers. Barnes added the two-point kick for the 31-0 advantage.
Houy scored another rushing touchdown, this time from 11 yards out for the 37-0 lead.
Silvers ran to paydirt from 48 yards and Barnes added the two-point kick to end the game.
The Flames offense generated 256 yards of total offense thanks to completing 5 of 6 passes for 105 yards and two touchdowns and having seven rushes for 151 yards.
Landon Silvers had 2 rushes for 58 yards and a score, completed a 40-yard touchdown pass, caught a 21-yard scoring pass, and had a 71-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.
Houy had 2 rushes for 89 yards and two scores and completed 1 of 2 passes for 22 yards. Dillard completed all three of his passes for 43 yards and a touchdown. Merlick caught three passes for 51 yards and a touchdown.
“(Landon’s) a great medium to short yardage (player), but (Friday) night he threw,” the elder Silvers said. “He got one deep ball to Adam Merlick, and Merlick ran. And then, of course, Andrew does Andrew’s stuff.”
The Faith defense allowed only 2 first downs, didn’t give up a third or fourth down conversion, and 68 yards of total offense. Lonestar had 24 rushes for 42 yards and completed 2 of 6 passes for 26 yards.
The coach pointed to several traits to explain why the Flames are so stingy on defense.
“Aggressiveness was there,” he said. “They were firing off the ball. They were getting in the backfield, disrupting everything. (Lonestar’s offense is) kind of like that triple option type thing where they can run the dive, the sweep or try to throw it over the top. But our guys were back there so fast, disrupting everything that it shut everything down. They had some plays here and there for maybe eight, nine yards. I think their biggest play the whole night may have been 15 yards. We had a couple penalties on defense. It helped them out to get another first down. We had a goal line stand, did a great job shutting that down. We pinned our ears back and went after them and did a great job.”
Sophomore Ronin Burns had six tackles and a forced fumble, while sophomore Madden Kinnee and junior Price Rosemond each had five tackles.
“Ronin did a great job just plugging the hole,” Silvers said. “He’s got long arms, and he was just able to really just grab a hold of anything that came by him. Great job there. He is out there on the outside, he’s one of our cornerbacks. Madden made some good plays. Price watches a lot of film during the week.”
Faith welcomes Medina at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, in a non-district contest. The Bobcats (5-0) are District 15-1A Division I members of the University Interscholastic League and have mercy-ruled every team they’ve faced this season.
