DAVENPORT —
An early mental lapse seemingly out of the way, the Clinton football team appeared headed in the right direction by the end of Friday’s first quarter at Brady Street Stadium.
The River Kings had just scored the equalizing touchdown and had triple the offensive yardage of host Davenport Central.
But from that point on, the developing magic vanished in what turned into a 40-14 loss.
“They came out hard and stopped us on some of our bread-and-butter plays,” Clinton senior quarterback Will Carr said. “We got a couple off, but we just kind of broke down.”
After winning its season opener, Clinton lost its second straight Mississippi Athletic Conference game to fall to 1-2 overall and in league play.
The Kings rolled up 155 first-quarter yards and got a 67-yard touchdown run by Carr to tie the game at 7 with less than 3 minutes to play in the opening period.
Thereafter, however, Iowa Class 4A’s No. 4 rusher found himself largely bottled up, as did his teammates. In the second and third quarters, the Kings amassed only 52 yards of offense while the Blue Devils (1-2, 1-2) collected 359 yards in that same span.
“All our kids are great competitors, but when it started to slip away, it really snowballed,” Clinton coach Lee Camp said. “We need to make better reads; that’s just the type of offense this is.
“It just always seemed like they had one extra guy that we weren’t expecting.”
Central scored 33 straight points during Clinton’s sluggish middle quarters to largely put the game out of reach.
The Kings had a good opportunity during a 6-plus-minute drive in the second quarter, getting into Central territory a few yards at a time. But ultimately, four penalties stalled the 15-play series, and the Devils went ahead 20-7 less than two minutes after getting the ball back.
Running back Zach Minch ran for 268 yards and five touchdowns on 25 carries for Central, which avoided an 0-3 start to its season for the first time since 2008. Clinton did a nice job covering the outside running lanes, but Minch instead rammed the ball up the middle.
“We gotta have points of attack,” Devils coach Mark Roering said. “We ran the heck out of jet sweep against Bettendorf, and we know teams are going to start jumping that.
“We have to have an answer to their answer.”
Carr totaled 201 yards of offense and ran in both Clinton touchdowns. He ran for 107 yards on 24 tries and was 5-of-9 passing for 94 yards.
Overall, though, the Kings couldn’t solve a Central team that allowed 76 total points in its first two games.
“I think we came in almost too overconfident,” Carr said of the previously winless Devils. “We gotta keep playing every game.
“It was mental mistakes, but we’ll get it figured out next week.”
DAVENPORT CENTRAL 40, CLINTON 14
Clinton 7 0 0 7 — 14
Central 7 13 20 0 — 40
First quarter
DC — Justin Waterman 35 fumble recovery (Justin Sanchez kick), 10:26
C — Will Carr 63 run (Jeremy Peters kick), 2:41
Second quarter
DC — Zach Minch 13 run (Sanchez kick), 10:47
DC — Minch 1 run (kick blocked), 2:57
Third quarter
DC — Minch 11 run (Sanchez kick), 4:53
DC — Minch 20 run (Sanchez kick), 4:00
DC — Minch 50 run (run failed), 0:22
Fourth quarter
C — Carr 3 run (Peters kick), 8:14
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING-Clinton (44-198), Will Carr 24-107, Ryan Driscoll 10-19, Dustin Caldwell 6-23, Jaylen Broadenaux 3-13, Eric Maddasion 1-36. Central (45-402), Zach Minch 25-268, Tyler Pethound 9-94, Joe Oliver 3-8, Chanslor Nicholson 1-0, Cameron Pugh 2-21, Tony Marshall 5-11.
PASSING-Clinton (5-9-1-94), Will Carr 5-9-1, 94. Central (3-5-1-26), Tyler Pethound 3-5-1, 26.
RECEIVING-C, Tyler Thacker 1-50, Jaylen Broadenaux 2-9, Dustin Caldwell 1-2, Cody Collendar 1-33. DC, Ryan Farrell 1-11, Joey Faison 2-15.
Sophomores: Davenport Central 49, Clinton 0
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