Edinburgh overmatched by Chargers

Methodical North Decatur scored the first six times it got the ball and rolled to a 55-0 football win at Edinburgh on Friday.

The Lancers were simply no match for the Chargers, who dominated both sides of the ball. North Decatur led 34-0 at the half and was on cruise control the rest of the way.

“Their physicality just wore on us,” Edinburgh coach Jason Burton said. “We’re a young team and an inexperienced team, and it shows when you play teams that are more physical than us. That’s what it came down to.”

North Decatur (2-0, 1-0 Mid-Hoosier) won the toss, and although it scored on its first possession, Edinburgh made the Chargers work for it, forcing the guests to go 68 yards on eight plays before Ethan Herbert scored on a 1-yard dive for a 6-0 lead.

“I thought we played pretty well. Really, if not for a pass interference call and a diving catch, we would have forced them to punt,” Burton said of the first drive. “But they just wore us down after that.”

The Chargers rolled from there. After Edinburgh (0-2, 0-1) went three and out on its next possession, North Decatur got an 11-yard scoring pass from Evan Smith to Tyler Walterman to go ahead 13-0.

An interception set up North’s next score, a 17-yard run by Logan Koehne, and a long Lancer drive on the next possession stalled in Charger territory after a 79-yard touchdown pass from Tyson Sackman to Dillon Simpson was called back on a personal foul.

Smith scored on runs of 1 and 5 yards on the Chargers’ next two possessions to give them a 34-0 lead at the half.

North Decatur tacked on three more scores in the second half. Edinburgh put together its best drive of the game at the end, reaching the Charger 18-yard line with less than a second to play. But a sack on the final play ended the Lancers’ hopes of breaking the shutout.

Overall, North Decatur racked up 325 yards to Edinburgh’s 185, but 69 of the Lancers’ yards came in the fourth quarter. Edinburgh also turned the ball over three times.

After two lopsided losses to open the season, the schedule should get easier the next two weeks for Edinburgh. The Lancers host Oldenburg next Friday and travel to Switzerland County the following week.