Falcons put it together

By EASportsToday.com
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Updated: September 23, 2017

Donoho breaks out against Coosa Christian for its first victory under Sanders

Donoho’s Tej Patel (4) ran for three touchdowns Friday night. Tyler Rigsby (66), the lineman blocking for him. returned an interception for a touchdown later in the game. (Photo by B.J. Franklin/GungHo Photos)

By East Alabama Sports Today

Mark Sanders saw signs of it coming in the second half of last week’s game. Friday night, it all came together.

The Donoho Falcons won for the first time under their new coach, smashing Coosa Christian 56-7 at Lentz Field. The win snapped a seven-game carry-over losing streak.

The 56 points were the most a Donoho team had scored in a game since hanging 65 on Shoals Christian in its 2015 season opener and more than four times what the Falcons had scored in any previous game this season.

“I was really super happy for the boys,” Sanders said. “They’ve been working their tails off since I got here. I think finally we played a game where we didn’t have many mistakes. That’s kind of been our problem this year. We’ve played some fairly good games, but we just keep having mistakes and finally tonight we put things together.”

The Falcons (1-3), who’ve won the last 13 meetings between the teams, jumped out to a 14-0 lead and led 28-7 at halftime. Tej Patel rushed for more than 130 yards and scored three touchdowns. Quarterbacks Hall Billings and Seth Ford each accounted for a touchdown. But perhaps the highlight of the night was when defensive lineman Tyler Rigsby intercepted a pass near midfield and returned it for a score.

“We played our best half of football against Winterboro last week in the second half,” Sanders said. “We challenged them to give us a great game in the second half and they finally gave us what we wanted to see. That’s the best we’ve played together as a team.

“We challenged them to come out the way we played the second half last week to play the whole game this week. We finally had that game where we put everything together. We found our identity, now we have to just execute and build on it. That’s basically what we did.”

The game got put together late after both teams were left to find games after losing JCA from their 2017 schedule.

The Falcons return to action next week at Spring Garden looking to win back-to-back games for the first time since the last two weeks of the 2015 season.