Hampshire runs away from Burlington Central
Almost everything Hampshire's spread offense attempted through the air seemed to work in Friday night's 54-14 home win over rival Burlington Central.
The Whip-Purs improved to 2-0 by smacking the Rockets with 6 first-half touchdowns in taking a 42-7 halftime lead. A running clock was instituted after Hampshire's seventh touchdown with 6:09 left in the third quarter bulged the lead to 48-7.
Hampshire senior quarterback Jake Vincent threw all 5 of his touchdown passes and accumulated 379 of his 401 yards in the first half alone. Overall, he completed 19 of 26 attempts without an interception.
The Whips gained 534 total yards while holding Burlington Central (0-2) to 138 total yards.
"Our coaches, our receivers and our offensive linemen are great," Vincent said. "It's not just me; the people around me helped me play better."
Vincent's prime targets were receivers Cam Fleury, Jared Hornbeck, Connor Burke and Erik Starrenburg. Fleury led the pack with 6 catches for 144 yards and a score, Hornbeck had 3 catches for 118 yards and 2 touchdowns, Burke made 5 grabs for 49 yards and a touchdown and Starrenburg made 2 receptions for 69 yards.
The Whips struck right away. Facing third-and-17 on their opening drive, Vincent hit Hornbeck behind the defense for a 57-yard touchdown pass. The extra point by and Eric Paulauskas made it 7-0 just 78 seconds into the game.
"Our post has been our go-to route all season," Hornbeck said. "I knew it would be open. Right when their safety jumped too soon, I knew I had it."
And it just kept coming: A 57-yard catch-and-run by Fleury set up a 13-yard scoring pass to Burke; a wide-open Fleury caught a 31-yard strike from Vincent in the end zone; and Hornbeck caught a 41-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-0 with 3:04 left in the first quarter.
"They came out just firing," first-year Central coach Brian Melvin said. "Our kids' heads popped off. I didn't expect that from this group. We have some more underlying problems that we have to fix that are not so much on the field, just more internally. Football is a crazy game, man. If you don't take care of the little things within your family, it starts to seep out.
"I said all summer that the transition for me being the third coach in three years was seamless. Those seams are starting to break a little bit and we're starting to find out more about these kids. We'll fix it. I'm not worried about it. This is disappointing, definitely."
The only positive moment of the first half for Central came with 7:35 left in the second quarter when running back Dionte Pierre took a middle screen 68 yards to pay dirt. That merely trimmed the deficit to 35-7.
The Whip-Purs supplied the dagger just before halftime. After taking possession at their own 25-yard line with 1:01 to play, they moved 75 yards in 6 plays, capped by Starrenburg's 8-yard scoring catch with 1.7 seconds left.
Hampshire coach Mike Brasile said he wasn't sure what kind of defense Central would run against the spread because the Rockets faced a wing-T team last week in Byron. He said his team was ready for a cover-2 or cover-3 look.
"We've got some things in the offensive playbook so we worked on both this week," Brasile said. "I felt like we were really prepared and our kids were prepared. We had a great week."