CAMDEN — By PATRIC FLANNIGAN
Sports editor
The Harmony Grove Hornets held its annual Black and Gold Spring Football Game on Thursday with the Gold team winning 22-18 in a competitive game.
The team played two, 10-minute quarters before breaking for 10 minutes and coming back to play a 20-minute half with a running clock.
The teams went into the half tied at 6. The black team went ahead 12-6 on a strong run by Mecca Arnold who did a great of hitting the gaps and getting north throughout the game. Soon-to-be sophomore Tobias Hicks would respond for the Gold team with a 70 plus yard touchdown run.
With the game tied at 12 the gold team came up with a fumble recovery near its goal line and Zach Smith connected with Austin McDonald for a touchdown. Smith ran in the two-point conversion to go up 22-12.
The Black team would score one more time with a long pass from Brad Launius to Xaylon Falls who wrestled the ball away from a defender at the buzzer and landed in the end zone.
After the game, H.G. Head Football Coach Ernie Horstkamp said that he was really pleased with the game and felt it was a good way to end spring football.
“We’ve had a pretty good spring,” Horstkamp said. “Just trying to get our base offense and defense in. Something that we try to do is just answer a lot of questions in positions that we may have graduated. Saw some guys that played some back up roles last year, I saw them stepping into a bigger role today. Saw some young guys really make some plays out there today too. We moved some guys around today and kinda looked at different positions throughout the Spring. We like to end with a competitive game in the second half where we kinda split them up even and it seemed to work. They really got after each other and that’s what we wanted.”
The Hornets had a total of 41 players that were dressed out for the game. One player will likely join the team after healing up from a car accident. Horstkamp was also pleased with the performances from a few basketball players that joined the football team for their senior seasons such as Jayce Posey and Antwoin Edwards who both came up with interceptions in the game.
“We got a couple of new faces that are familiar from the basketball court,” Horstkamp stated. “They really brought it. They’ve been working really hard to earn a spot. They are going to be seniors so if they keep doing what they’re doing then they are going to contribute in a major way.”
Xaylon Falls, Chase Stanberry, Damien Daniels, Daniel Hicks Jermain Edwards, Daniel Hill all made highlight plays during the game as the line play was solid on offense and defense.
Horstkamp said the team will now key in on weights and conditioning heading in to next week so the student athletes can focus on finals in the classroom.
The summer program will start up after Memorial day.