Orchard Farm Drops Home Opener to Montgomery County

At 5-foot-4 and 135 pounds, Montgomery County junior Nick Martin has modest size for a running back. But there was nothing modest about the game he had against Orchard Farm on Friday.

Martin rushed for an unofficial tally of 132 yards on 18 carries and found the endzone twice, including a 51-yard touchdown scamper late in the fourth quarter that sealed a 21-0 win over the host Eagles at Luxembourg Field in a matchup between Eastern Missouri Conference teams.

"I have the advantage of having a low center of gravity and I work on my game every day," Martin said. "I'll try anything to get bigger, faster and stronger. Anything to bring out my best."

The visiting Wildcats took advantage of an early Orchard Farm special teams miscue. Montgomery County went three-and-out on the game's opening drive but Orchard Farm fumbled the ensuing punt, leading to a fresh set of downs and good field position for the Wildcats.

On the drive Montgomery County quarterback Brady Lichtenberg came up with a big third-down play—a 36-yard pass to tight end Colt Ellis—that led to a 1-yard touchdown plunge from Martin with 8 minutes, 51 seconds left in the first quarter.

"Special teams is a huge part of this game, so it's big when you're able to capitalize on them," Martin said.

Luke Longstreet's extra point gave the Wildcats a 7-0 lead and that's how it stayed until late in the third quarter when Luther Harris turned the corner on a run play and dashed 45 yards up the sideline for another rushing touchdown for Montgomery County and a 14-0 lead.

"Nick Martin broke a big one (a 29-yard run in the second quarter), Luther Harris broke a big one, and both of those runs were set up by great blocks by their teammates," Montgomery County coach John Klekamp said. "We had two great blocks on both plays that really sprung those runs. We really played together as a team tonight."

Martin's 51-yard touchdown run with 2:22 left to play and Longstreet's third extra point of the evening capped the scoring.

While Orchard Farm coach Phil Kendall was content with how his team played on defense, the Eagles offense took a big step backward from its Week 1 performance when it netted 377 yards of total offense in a 47-6 win against Van-Far.

In that game Eagles quarterback Blake Liscombe accounted for 142 yards passing and four total touchdowns without yielding an interception. But the Montgomery County defense had Liscombe's number on Friday, picking off the Eagles' signal caller four times—twice each by Tim Kroll and Dakota Smith.

"Our offense never found any rhythm, obviously," Kendall said. "(The special teams miscue) was a big play but we've got to be able to rebound from that. We threw the ball deep a few times tonight but it just wasn't there for us."

The loss of Zach Bine made matters worse for Orchard Farm, as the 5-11, 235-pound senior lineman came up lame following a run play late in the second quarter and did not return. Kendall said Bine had been nursing an apparent foot injury earlier in the week and re-aggravated it on the play.

"We knew he was dinged up going in and that's why we didn't have him playing defense," Kendall said. "He hurt it earlier in the week on Tuesday. We've been rehabbing it all week and he hasn't practiced on it. I don't know how bad it is at this point.

"I think it was just a bad night and I think we'll be fine offensively. We just never found a rhythm early. One of our top linemen that we count on for leadership went down, we took some penalties. ... Just a sloppy night all the way around offensively."

Both teams are now 1-1 overall and in conference play. Orchard Farm next plays at Metro-East Lutheran at 7 p.m. Friday.