The Perryville football team is quickly turning into a M.A.S.H. unit. With several players already nursing injuries from the previous week, they also threw in other players who were in quarantine. However, through all of that, Perryville was still able to hang on for the 28-20 victory over Windsor on Friday to claim its first victory of the season.
The win is also the first for head coach Brent Roth, but the first year coach deflected all the credit to his players.
“It feels awesome,” Roth said. “I couldn’t be prouder of the guys. I thought we were going to get it last week, but we faced a lot of adversity this week. We put in a lot of work and I’m happy to see it pay off.”
It was never easy for the Pirates as the Owls reached the redzone in the final minute before a pair of passes into the end zone were batted down. That put a great end to what was a crazy week for Perryville.
Quarterback Aiden McGarvey and Alex Sanders missed the game, along with Tyler Rhyne who was out with a concussion. Pile that onto Davin Wheeler and other linemen and the Pirates could have easily been staring at a loss.
However, they leaned on Deven Lukefahr and the running game in the second half. Lukefahr had 112 yards on 16 carries with three touchdowns, while Ben Hotop amassed 90 yards on 15 carries on the night. The Pirates ran the ball 30 times in the second half alone.
“He was running people over,” Roth said of Lukefahr. “We weren’t giving him a lead blocker a lot. It was pretty fun to watch.”