The Charleston Trojans beat the Jersey Panthers 45-34 at home Friday.
Running back Treylin Couch exploded on the ground as he had four total touchdowns. Jersey high could do nothing to stop Couch as he ran for 170 yards. He also caught one catch by senior quarterback Luke Bonnstetter for 42 yards and a touchdown.
“Specifically, they just couldn’t keep up with his speed, and he was running so hard today, it was something we’ve never seen, and that’s his potential,” said Bonnstetter. “He’s only a sophomore, and he’s running like this on varsity. Four touchdowns, probably well over 100 yards I’m guessing. That was an incredible performance.”
Charleston was able to beat Jersey (1-2), 45-34, with help from Couch on Friday night at Trojan Hill. Charleston head coach Brian Halsey credited the win to guys stepping up with injuries affecting the team
“You know, a lot of people don’t realize that at one point on offense we had one, two, three, four sophomores and two freshmen. Injuries had plagued us,” said Halsey.
Charleston was able to ride its offence to victory even with the defense giving up 27 points in the second half. Charleston was up 42-14 in the third quarter, but let Jersey come back. Although, it wasn’t only the defense giving up points. A third quarter 98-yard pick six on the right sideline made the game 42-26.
“That was a bad read, I thought, because we had two seams going straight up, and so I looked to the right to get the safety to draw over there so I could hit [Marcellx Boling] down the other seam,” said Bonnstetter. “And I thought that he bit there, but he just stayed right in the middle, and it just went straight to him.”
Jersey was not able to do much else after that though. Charleston tightened their defense up on the following possession making Jersey turn the ball over on downs after only 5 plays. In Jersey’s next and final possession, they would drive down the field in 14 plays and 90 yards to score a touchdown. Jersey head coach Caleb Williams was hoping they could have stopped the clock more though.
“Oh yeah, I mean when you’re ahead late in the game like that, they’re going to force you to take the short passes and not give up any big plays,” said Williams. “So yeah, we just did what we had to do there. We just should have done a little bit better job getting the ball out of bounds, stopped the clock a little bit more.”
Their last play for the touchdown was a blown read in cover 5 on the Charleston defense as Jersey had a player wide open for a 36-yard touchdown pass.
On the following onside kick Charleston was able to field the kick cleanly after one bounce. Charleston, then was able to covert on 4th down to seal the win.
Bonnstetter finished the game with nine completions on 17 attempts with 136 yards and two touchdowns. Senior running back Marcellx Boling had 133 yards and one touchdown as well.
Charleston now gets ready for conference play with a 3-0 record. Charleston knew this game was important and went into the game thinking just that.
“Yeah, I say that we really locked in on this game that we had to play because we really wanted to go 3-0. The mindset was, who wants it more?” said Couch.
Charleston starts its first of three away games in a row against Mahomet-Seymour on Friday.
Patrick Schmitz can be reached at 581-2812 or at pfschmitz@eiu.edu.
