Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

DOVER - No matter who was on the other side of the field Friday night, the big thing for the Western Boone football team was to get back to what they do after suffering back-to-back narrow losses. And they did just that, getting a comfortable 49-0 win over Frankfort on homecoming. "We told the kids on Monday this week, it didn't matter who the opponent was, it was all about us this week," Western Boone head coach Justin Pelley said. "We felt like we gave one away last week, and it feels good to get back on the right side of things. We played really well tonight, regardless of opponent, and did what we had to do all the way around. We played team good team football." Western Boone played on a short field the entire night. After going up 7-0 on a 2-yard run by Cannon Brunes, the Stars forced a three-and-out and drove down to the Frankfort 22, before they had their lone miscue of the night on a fumbled exchange. But three plays later the Stars got an interception, their first of six on the night, and scored one play later on a 24-yard run from Brunes. The very next play, Drew Gott had a pick-6 to make it 21-0. The Stars picked off the very next play, leading to a connection from Brandon Potter to Klyde McKeighan to make it 28-0. "We are still trying to figure some things out," Pelley said. "It's great to capitalize on those turnovers, and offensively we are still figuring out what we do well, and then need to practice that. I think we were getting to a point where we were doing too much, and weren't doing it well. Tonight, we spread the ball around and got back to the basics." Western Boone ended the next two Frankfort drives with an interception and a three-and-out, leading to a 7-yard touchdown run from Potter and a 17-yard pass from Potter to Marcus Fortner. After recovering a fumble, Western Boone capped its scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run from Jayden Williamson, the first of his career. "It was good for him," Pelley said. "He has been running really hard on the JV, and we had noticed some things with him. So we wanted to put him in there with Brandon and some of our other guys to see how he would respond. He did a good job." Pelley also said it was a credit to some of his team leaders on how they handled a game like Friday night. Rather than try to run up the score and stat chase, they understood the bigger picture of Friday's game. Luke Jackson was one such player, who had four carries for 26 yards and helped set-up a couple of touchdown drives. Rather than worrying about 'getting his' he stayed focused on helping the team be successful. "Luke Jackson is a glue guy," Pelley said. "He is really talented in a lot of things and does a lot unnoticed things - like setting other people up for success. He doesn't always get the credit for that. I commend kids like him, and our offensive line, or some of our wings. Those are the guys that mean more to me than some of the guys that get the headlines to be honest with you." The only question then became if Frankfort would be able to score, but the Stars defense held firm. The group allowed just 74 yards of offense, and intercepted more passes than they allowed completions. Brunes had five carries for 46 yards, and Potter had four for 39. Williamson had nine for 40. The Stars, now 4-2 and 2-2 in the conference, head to Southmont next week. "When you look at the big picture, we are eight points from being 6-0," Pelley said. "A lot of people would be happy with that, but we aren't and I don't ever to want it to be that way and I don't want to coach at a place like that - we want to be held accountable. We know how we can play, but how we can play and how we do play are two different things. If the outcome was pre-determined, we wouldn't have to play the game, but we have to go out every Friday night at 7 p.m. and prove it. We did that tonight, not because of the opponent, but because of us." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.