Royals defense dominant in win

Special teams and a late fourth quarter score were the only things that kept the Mason County defense from a shutout Friday night against Pendleton County.

They were simply dominant in a 47-14 win over the Wildcats.

The Royals held Pendleton to 81 total yards from scrimmage in the game, getting to 2-0 for the first time since 2014 and a 1-0 start in Class 3A, 6th District play.

“Defense did a good job tonight. We had eight days to prepare for Pendleton County and talked about doing our job up front, attacking and closing, we didn’t do it every single play, but for the most part we did a really good job. Linebackers did a really good job running their alleys, reading their keys, being able to shed blocks and get people on the ground,” Royals coach Jonathan Thomas said.

Brandon Dearing found the end zone four times on the ground to go with 127 rushing yards, giving him seven in the Royals first two games.

“A tribute to him. He’s done the things that we’ve needed him to do. If you watch him, his legs are always churning and being able to stick his foot in the ground and that kind of thing. His vision has gotten much better so just a year to grow up and figure things out have been really good for him,” Thomas said.

The ground game did the majority of the damage in the contest, rushing for 215 yards while they also got 50 yards from the passing game, Ashton Adams hitting Carson Pugh for a 23-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.

But the defense was the story of the night and had a good time doing it.

“If you had somebody mic’d up tonight, it would have been great. We were all happy, cheering each other on. It was a good atmosphere when we were out there playing. The defense definitely had it tonight,” Royals defensive end Dravin Routt said.

After a quarter of play, they had just given up one yard on 10 plays, by that time it was a 13-0 Royals advantage on a pair of touchdown runs from Dearing and Terrell Henry.

By the half, the Wildcats were up to 13 yards, the Royals with a 26-0 lead that felt like it could have been a lot more with two first half fumbles and unable to finish a couple of drives. Two of those fumble resulted in Pendleton getting the ball inside the Royals 30-yard line, but the defense held ground and didn’t allow a first down from there.

“We couldn’t let that get in our way. There’s nothing we can do to change that or change what happened. We just had to adjust and keep going and that’s what we did,” Royals linebacker Brady Sanders said.

The defensive prowess continued, the Royals in the Wildcats backfield for what seemed like all night long, Dearing adding a pair of rushing scores that was mixed in-between a 99-yard Coen Fuller kickoff return for a touchdown.

Outside of a blocked punt, special teams were a little to be desired for the Royals in the lopsided affair.

“We try to use guys on special teams to try and prove themselves and be able to use some of our depth instead of playing guys that already played one side of the ball. We’ll try to keep doing that, but we got to make sure we’re watching video and guys are cleaning up things. We’ll do that this week,” Thomas said.

Caden Clark-Roberts got in on the scoring fun in the fourth with a 9-yard touchdown run, getting the game to a running clock with 10:26 to play.

A late Pendleton score against a lot of Royals reserves came by the way of a Jacob Redden 7-yard run to get it to 47-14 and the final on the evening.

The Royals outgained the Wildcats 285-81 on the night.

After Dearing’s 127 yards rushing, seven other ball carriers combined for 88 yards for the Royals.

Henry threw for 14 yards, Adams for 36 and the score.

The Royals are working on finding an opponent for next week, the Frankfort contest called off due to the Panthers quarantine with COVID. They’re hopeful to get things ironed out by the end of the weekend to prepare.

“Just happy for my kids and coaches and having the opportunity to play this year because week in and week out is not promised. We’re just blessed, we’ll count our blessings and we’ll just hope we can find an opponent for next week,” Thomas said.

Pendleton County was led by Redden’s 47 rushing yards on the night as they fell to 1-2 on the season. The Wildcats will host 0-3 Lewis County next week.

ROYALS 47, WILDCATS 14

PENDLETON COUNTY – 0-0-6-8 – 14

MASON COUNTY – 13-13-14-7 — 47

Scoring

1ST QUARTER

(MC) – Dearing 11-yard run – 3:02 (Adams kick)

(MC) – Henry 2-yard run — :23 (kick failed)

2ND QUARTER

(MC) – Adams 23-yard pass to Pugh – 11:17 (kick failed)

(MC) – Dearing 13-yard run – 8:05 (Adams kick)

3RD QUARTER

(MC) — Dearing 4-yard run – 9:48 (Adams kick)

(PC) – Fuller 99-yard kickoff return – 9:32 (run failed)

(MC) – Dearing 10-yard run – 2:24 (Adams kick)

4TH QUARTER

(MC) – Caden Clark-Roberts 9-yard run – 10:26 (Adams kick)

(PC) – Redden 7-yard run – 2:30 (Pearson run)

Game Stats

Passing Yards: Pendleton 0, Mason 50 (Henry 3/8 for 14, Adams 2/2 for 36, TD)

Rushing Yards: Pendleton 81 (Redden 8-47, Fuller 10-24, Pearson 5-21, Verst 3-2, Rogers 2-(minus) 3, Baker 6-(minus) 3, Fields 7-(minus) 3, Thomas 2-(minus) 4) Mason 235 (Dearing 19-127, Caden Clark-Roberts 5-35, Chad Clark-Roberts 4-28, Adams 3-21, Henry 7-15, Sanders 1-3, Walker 1-1, Thomas 1-(minus) 15)

Receiving: Pendleton N/A , Mason (Pugh 1-23, Jones 1-13, Marshall 2-11, Flinders 1-3)

Penalties: Pendleton 4-33, Mason 1-10

Turnovers: Pendleton 3, Mason 3

Records: Pendleton County (1-2, 0-1), Mason County (2-0, 1-0)