Quakers down county rival Danville, 35 - 7

By Jackie Paquette
The Plainfield Quakers opened their new field on the right foot, defeating Danville 35-7 in the first football contest played at the new Plainfield High School Friday night.
“Coach Woodard told us to shut everything out and concentrate on the game,” Quaker senior tailback Zane Fakes said. “It’s kind of hard though. Just the anticipation got us all hyped up and I don’t think we played as well as we could have in the first quarter. They had a lot of adrenaline going too, and I think that got (to) us.”
Plainfield got on the board first, with its special teams providing the offense. Senior Kevin Mucho returned a punt from the Warriors’ Nathan Wilkins 46 yards for the first touchdown at the new field, putting the Quakers on top 7-0 with 5:59 left in the first quarter.
“Tonight we leaned on our defense and our special teams quite a bit,” Quaker Head Coach Brian Woodard said. “Our offense isn’t where it needs to be yet. We are going to have to get better in that phase, but that’s why we practice.”
Fakes almost put Plainfield on top just before the end of the first period with a 75 yard touchdown run, but the score was called back on a holding flag against the Quakers.
“If you play football at Plainfield, you want to dot the ‘I’ in the I formation,” Woodward said. “That’s Zane for us. We are not going to make any bones about it, we are going to hand the ball to our tailback as long as we have big, strong physical guys up front and we do.”
Plainfield would post its second touchdown two drives later, putting together an 84-yard march down the field in just four plays. The drive finished with Mucho again in the endzone, this time on a 68 yard run. After the extra point from senior Sean Williams, the Quakers found themselves up 14-0 in the middle of the second quarter.
A little more than two minutes later Plainfield would add another seven, capitalizing on a pass dropped by the Warriors’ Austin Chalfant. Senior Quaker Ben Hamlin picked the fumbled ball up around the 30-yard line and ran it down into the endzone to make the score 21-0.
“We did alright,” Fakes said. “We can do a lot better I think, we have a lot to work on. Basically every position has some things to work on. We just need to get stuff figured out before next week.”
Danville would post its first and only score of the night on its next drive, starting on its own 20-yard line after a touchback on the Plainfield kickoff. Warrior quarterback Trent Schaffer pushed the ball 80 yards down the field for the score, with the drive culminating with a 13-yard pass from Schaffer to junior Calvin Beasley in the endzone with just 18 seconds to play in the half. The Danville drive was aided by a couple of penalties against the Quakers, including a 15-yard flag for roughing the passer on what would have been fourth-and-five for the Warriors.
“I was proud of the kids,” Danville Head Coach Terry Siddall said. “I thought we played well, and I thought we did a lot of things well. There were four or five plays that if they were reversed the outcome may have been different. We had a lot of things go wrong that just came back to haunt us tonight.”
The Quakers’ special teams squad came up big again in the third quarter, with senior Nick Massey recovering a punt fumbled by the Warriors at their own 30-yard line. Fakes would take the ball into the endzone in just one play to put Plainfield ahead 28-7 with 4:37 to play in the third.
“There were several key special teams plays,” Woodard said. “There were a couple of opportune moments when we had a momentum change go our way. We didn’t capitalize like we have in the past though, that was the most disappointing aspect of tonight for me. We left a lot of points out there.”
Plainfield would put together one more scoring drive, overlapping the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth quarters. Quarterback Johnny Jay and the Quakers covered 45 yards in a six-play drive that ended with Fakes punching the ball in on a one-yard run after taking the ball to the goal line on a 16-yard scramble.  
“I told our kids that I am never going to be upset about a win; it is better for us to correct our mistakes in a win than in a loss,” Woodard said. “I thought Danville’s staff and their players just did a great job. They played awfully hard and had a great scheme to stop our run game. We’ve got to get better, and we will.”
The Warriors threatened with a long drive in the middle of the fourth period, but couldn’t score, turning the ball over on downs at the Plainfield 31-yard line.
“Plainfield is always one of the better teams we play, and I thought we battled well tonight,” Siddall said. “We ran out of gas there at the end, but I was happy with the kids’ effort. We’ve got to fix our special teams problems and be a little bit more consistent on offense.”
For the Quakers, Fakes finished the night with 126 yards on 12 carries. Jay completed five of 10 passes for 47 yards on the night. Danville was led by Nick Hess with 23 carries for 51 yards on the ground, while Schaffer completed 11 of 31 passes for 81 yards.
“This is a good way to start the season, now we just have to build on it,” Fakes said.