Ironmen end with another win
DANVILLE — Danville coach Carl Majer nicknames Aaron Johnson "Superman" and the senior lived up to the term of endearment Friday night in a 52-20 victory over Executive Education.
A close game in the final minute of the first half turned comical. That's because like a superhero Johnson was at the right place at the right time — all game long. All told, the defensive back/wide receiver had a scoop and score, a pick six and two touchdown receptions.
"He was jumping around, flying around, making all sorts of plays out there on Senior Night," Majer said of Johnson. "He's just a tremendous athlete and a blessing to have on this football team. Whenever we need a big play, he seems to be the one who comes up with it."
With turnovers haunting the Ironmen all throughout the first half, they were holding onto a slim 7-6 lead thanks to a 46-yard fumble recovery TD by Johnson in the first quarter.
Danville's first successful drive in the red zone ended with a 32-yard field goal by Garrett Hoffman with 20 seconds until halftime. Prior to that, Madden Patrick had a pair of passes tipped and picked off in the end zone.
The Raptors, not wanting to kneel, had the turnovers catch up to them again. This time Johnson picked off Cazhiere Richardson and returned it 73 yards for the pick-six as time expired, giving the Ironmen 10 quick points and a momentum boost as they got the ball to start the third quarter.
"The first half is on me, no excuses. I didn't have the guys focused," Majer said. "We made some adjustments at halftime by getting our timing down offensively and getting back into sync."
It didn't take long. After a great kick return by Bo Sheptock, Danville needed two plays to get its first offensive score of the night, a 24-yard strike by Patrick to Johnson. The touchdown was Patrick's 35th of the year, passing Zach Gordon's 34 from a year ago for the single-season record.
"If I'm being honest, I didn't know that (I was on the receiving end of his historical TD)," Johnson said. "Props to him, he's one heck of a good kid and I grew up playing with him and now that I know I'm happy for him and I'm glad that everybody was part of it and for him."
The two later connected on a 21-yard score to round out both of their scoring for the night.
The Ironmen, showing they can beat you in every possible way also got scoring contributions from special teams with Cole Duffy returning a 41-yard punt down the right side. That was a remedy of sorts for fumbling a caught punt in the second quarter that led to a Raptors TD.
The defense had two more takeaways — a 4-yard pick-six by Lincoln Diehl, and a fumble recovery by Landon Kehoe on Raptors' trickery gone bad. Sheptock rewarded Kehoe with a 1-yard rushing TD and getting further away from the team's early offensive woes.
"We were just trying to get the offense going by playing how we know to play," Johnson said. "Their defense just held to zero offensive points in the first half, and we just wanted to move the ball and pick it up more in the second half."
The Ironmen also fumbled the ball in the first quarter when Carter Raup had the ball punched out from behind on a 1-on-1 tackle in space. Danville, though, was up to stopping the Raptors all night, making them earn all of their scores.
Their first-half passing TD came on fourth down following an Executive Education timeout, and both rushing scores came on drives of 70 or more yards. The Raptors also went 0-for-11 on third down.
"We can't have those turnovers with where we're going to go, but we were fortunate tonight that they didn't hurt us," Majer said. "The defense played tremendously tonight and if they keep that up while we clean up the turnovers, we'll be able to overcome some things in win-or-go-home play."
Danville (9-1) secured the No. 1 seed in the District 4 Class 3A tournament. It will host eighth-seeded Athens (3-7) in the first round.
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