Collinsville HS football sees second half struggles in loss

by Mark Jurgena

COLLINSVILLE — They couldn’t score in the second half.

That was the story for the Collinsville High School football team on Friday night at Kahok Stadium as they fell to visiting Belleville East 30-15.

“It was a typical week one game I’d say,” began CHS coach Colton Rhodes. “There’s a lot of mistakes that were made. Everything is fixable and they’re not huge mistakes but we had a pretty inexperienced team this year coming in. We didn’t return a whole lot of starters but all in all we played a really good team close for three quarters.”

After the Lancers drove the field to score a short TD with 8:30 to go in the opening quarter on their first possession, they got a break when the Kahoks went out of bounds at their own two.

East forced a safety to take an early 9-0 lead. 

On the ensuing kickoff from the CHS 20-yard line, East returned the ball to Collinsville’s 49. But the Kahok defense rose to the occasion with Devin Habermehl coming up with an interception and returned it into Lancer territory. 

Collinsville returned the favor to East but the Kahok defense came up big again and forced the Lancers to punt.

Loyal Patterson returned it 67 yards for a TD and the extra point by Matt Reynolds made it a 9-7 game. He caught it on the left hash and took it down the right sideline.

“He was able to outrun a lot of guys to get to the corner,” said Rhodes. “Then we had some good hustle plays. Aiden Jordan threw a block on the punter to finish it off and let Loyal jog into the end zone.”

The Kahoks then had another play on special teams when Reynolds recovered his own onside kick to steal a possession.

“We saw something we liked in their initial kick return so we called an onside kick after our touchdown and were able to recover it,” Rhodes said.

Collinsville’s offense took advantage with an 11-play, 51-yard drive. CHS had QB Chase Reynolds sneak it in from the one yard line to make it a 13-9 contest. 

The Kahoks went for two and Rome Richardson found the end zone to make it 15-9 with 8:10 to go in the second quarter.

“I wanted to try and play catch up here after giving up the safety,” Rhodes said.

But the Lancers took the ball down the field for their own TD and the extra point capped the first half scoring at 16-15 East.

Things looked good for Collinsville in the second half as they got a big 51-yard kickoff return from Patterson to start the half but turned it over on downs. 

From there, East was able to put up two TDs in the second half while keeping the Kahoks off the board and went on to their opening week victory. 

Kahok notes

Rhodes commented on how the Kahoks couldn’t move the ball on first down regardless of what they tried.

“(That second TD) there were a lot of plays on that drive because we could not move the ball on first down,” said Rhodes. “We were behind the chains every possession. I tried everything, run, pass, screen, quick game, deep shot I tried it all.”

As for defense, Rhodes believed his team did well but gave up too many explosive plays to East.

“We did a lot of good things,” he said. “We gave up one or two too many explosive plays in this game which I feel like teams are going to do against Belleville East with their speed and athleticism. They’ve got some really good playmakers on the outside and the running back is good too.

“Hopefully we can do a better job and limit those explosive plays.”

Centralia

The Orphans opened their season with a 42-35 win. Centralia returned the very first kickoff of the season for a TD on their brand new turf field on their way to the win.

However, Rhodes preferred to concentrate on his ballclub and how they had to improve in this upcoming week.

“We’re going to work really hard at preparing ourselves to be great on first down this week, since we struggled so much with that. Obviously we weren’t very good on third downs either but if we can be better on first down then that all connects together. 

“Our focus will be positive yards, hopefully four plus. That will make life easier on our quarterback and everybody else.”

Collinsville will host the Orphans on Friday at Kahok Stadium. Kick off is set for 7 p.m.