IN SHORT: Cabot’s football team ran almost at will against Lake Hamilton Tuesday evening.
By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Cabot offense was very impressive Tuesday night in a scrimmage against Lake Hamilton. The visiting Wolves found the Panther offense next to unstoppable, but they did manage a few scores on the Cabot defense.
No score was kept, but Cabot made many more stops against Lake Hamilton than vice versa, and controlled the action throughout most of the contest.
The two teams swapped 15-play drives, and nothing stopped progress. If a team turned the ball over or was stopped on downs, the line of scrimmage stayed the same, and the offense got another set of downs.
Cabot was only stopped on downs or turnovers once in its five drives.
Lake Hamilton was stopped on every drive. The Panther defense forced four turnovers, but Lake Hamilton went on to score three times on its five 15-play drives. Only one of the Wolves’ touchdowns came without the benefit of the scrimmage rules.
Cabot used almost all of its 15 plays on one drive with its first two varsity drives. The first took 12 plays and ended with a 2-yard plunge by sophomore fullback Vince Aguilar.
Aguilar carried seven times for 33 yards on the drive. Halfback Jordan Carlisle had a 15-yard run during the drive, and quarterback Brandon Wade carried twice for 29 yards. Wade fumbled at the end of his 18-yard run, but Cabot recovered the loose ball.
After the touchdown, the Panthers went to the air for their final three plays, and almost scored again. Wade hit halfback Colin Fuller for 10 yards, then scrambled for 11 on the 14th play. He again hooked up with Fuller for 44 yards down to the 15-yard line on the final play.
Lake Hamilton lost a fumble, and was stopped on downs once on its first drive, but eventually scored on the seventh play of the drive on an inverted screen that went for 13 yards.
The Wolves hit a 23-yard pass and a 27-yard quarterback scramble during the drive.
The quarterback fumbled at the end of the run and Cabot covered, but the Wolves re-started on first down at the 19-yard line.
Senior linebacker Raul Gault got a sack on the next drive of Lake Hamilton’s possession. On the next play, sophomore Cody Myers forced a fumble with a big hit at the line of scrimmage that senior Michael Rowlett recovered for the Panthers.
After another run for no gain on the 10th play, Lake Hamilton hit a 27-yard pass.
The Wolves’ final five plays picked up no yardage, and in-cluded another tackle for a loss by Gault. Senior defensive back Josh Clem almost picked off the last pass, stepping in front of a screen attempt and knocking the ball down.
Cabot got just seven yards in four tries to start its next drive, but were a dropped pass by Clem away from one big gain.
After starting over on downs with another recovered fumble, the Panther offense started clicking again. Carlisle picked up five yards before Wade and Fuller hooked up for a 27-yard pass completion. Aguilar rumbled five yards, Wade kept for 18, Fuller picked up two and Aguilar scored from eight yards out to end the drive.
Cabot picked up nine yards on the final four plays of the drive.
The second team put together a nice drive too. Sophomore fullback Taylor Travis carried eight times for 36 yards to lead the team down the field. Senior halfback Brandon Davis carried twice for eight yards and sophomore quarterback Anthony Byrnes kept three times for 34 yards. The second team used all 15 plays to methodically march down the field and score on the final play, a 1-yard dive by Travis.
The two teams spent the last portion of the scrimmage in red-zone situations. Both teams scored on almost every short-field possession to close out the event.
