Erie-Prophetstown<\/a> with a dominant second half.<\/p>\nMendota started out strong on the game\u2019s opening possession as Quinn Eddy ran for 13 yards on the first play.<\/p>\n
The Trojans converted two key third downs with Jayden Lesley running for 8 yards and then Eddy finding Viktor Angulo for 19 yards before Lesley followed with a 3-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The defense of the Trojans dominated the Panthers, allowing just 30 yards of offense in the half.<\/p>\n
After a forced punt, Mendota took over and started to drive again, but a fumble on fourth down gave the ball back to the Panthers.<\/p>\n
Unable to move the ball again, Mendota got the ball back, but another solid drive ended in a Eddy interception.<\/p>\n
A couple spectacular plays on defense from Samuel Arteaga that gave the ball back to the Trojans, who were looking to score before the end of the half.<\/p>\n
Eddy connected with Lesley on a screen pass for 35 yards, but two plays later, E-P intercepted a pass in the back of the end zone.<\/p>\n
After a short Panthers\u2019 punt, Mendota yet again drove the field with the passing game, but a bobbled snap on a field goal attempt ended the half with the Trojans leading 7-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a great first half,\u201d Mendota coach Jim Eustice said. \u201cIt was fun to watch and fun to coach, but to only get seven points was big when we easily could\u2019ve had 21.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knowing they were lucky to only be down a score, the Panthers wanted to change their offensive luck right away in the second half and they did just that.<\/p>\n
On third-and-long, Evan Steimle found Caleb Brown for 22 yards and then again for 10 to give E-P more yards in two plays than in the entire first half.<\/p>\n
After a 12-yard run from Tristan Hovey, Steimle ran it in from a yard out and tied the game at 7-7 with the extra point.<\/p>\n
Less than 30 seconds later, Eddy threw a pick 6 that gave the Panthers their first lead of the game at 14-7.<\/p>\n
Moments later, Hovey intercepted a pass and returned to the Mendota 14.<\/p>\n
On E-P\u2019s first play, Brown broke a pair of tackles for a 14-yard touchdown reception that made it 21-7 with all three touchdowns coming in less than two and a half minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked at halftime that it\u2019s their first home game and they won last week too,\u201d E-P coach Tyler Whitebread said. \u201cMendota is very well coached and hit hard and I think that caught us by surprise a bit. But we got some interceptions and made some adjustments at halftime and came out strong to get the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trojans struggled to move the ball and punted twice, giving the ball back to the Panthers.<\/p>\n
After some short runs, the Panthers faced third-and-11 and came through as Steimle found Decker for a 21-yard touchdown catch that extended the lead to 27-7.<\/p>\n
Mendota had two more possessions, but the turnover bug got the Trojans again with a fumble and an interception to end the game with eight total in a 27-7 defeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly believe we are headed in the right direction,\u201d Eusitce said. \u201cWe made some young mistakes, which will happen, but with the attitude and effort along with an ability to move the ball well all night, we are going to win some games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eddy completed 15-of-24 passes for 168 yards. The Panthers were led by Hovey with 52 yards rushing on 11 carries while Steimle threw for 73 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes with a young team comes young mistakes That was the case Friday in Mendota. Despite a dominant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,982,6340,10988,304,11134,6339,10986,6357,10985],"class_list":["post-274434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-erie-prophetstown-preps","tag-fnd-illinois-valley","tag-friday-night-drive-front-headlines","tag-high-school-football","tag-illinois-valley-front-headlines","tag-mendota-preps","tag-newstribune","tag-premium","tag-prep-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}