The Fairfield Eagles fell to the Diboll Lumberjacks 34-14 at home Friday night, Oct. 25. The Eagles move to 5-3 overall and 2-1 in district play.
“The first half we came out flat. We missed tackles on defense and had penalties at bad times on offense,” Coach John Bachtel said. “The second half we came out and moved the ball well, but turned the ball over in the red zone instead of scoring. The defense played better. We just didn’t make enough plays.”
The Lumberjacks scored two touchdowns in the first quarter to take a 14-0 lead.
Fairfield’s Kohl Collins connected with Finn Smith for a 6-yard touchdown with 2 minutes, 12 seconds left in the first quarter. The extra point by Kieran King was good to make it a 14-7 game.
Diboll scored with 23 seconds left in the first half, but the two-point conversion failed, leading to a score of 20-7 at halftime.
Collins found Smith with 9:22 left in the third quarter for a 38-yard touchdown. The extra point by King was good to make it 20-14.
About two minutes later, the Lumberjacks scored on a 52-yard run. The extra point was good as Diboll extended its lead to 27-14.
Fairfield was making its way to the end zone, but an interception was run back the length of the field for another Lumberjack touchdown with 2:59 left in the game to secure the win.
Diboll managed to make another interception 50 seconds later to run the time off the clock and to take home the big road win.
Collins threw for 219 yards. Finn Smith had 131 receiving yards; Connor Volvert, 51 receiving yards; and Kavion Hicks, 37 receiving yards. The team has 161 rushing yards with Darion Weatherall leading the way with 89 yards. Jason Brackens had 57 yards, Smith, 11 yards; and Collins, 4 yards.
Brackens led the Eagles defense with 13 tackles. Dylon McGowan had 9 tackles; Tate Lewis and Jeremiah Huson, 8 each; Justus Savage, 7; Weatherall, 6; and Brayden Thornburg, 5.
Fairfield will host the Westwood Panthers at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1.
“Westwood has a very good team. They are very explosive on offense and are not letting teams score much,” Bachtel said. “We need to just keep worrying about getting better each day.”
