By Larry Fleming
larryfleming@daltoncitizen.com
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Dominion Christian showed up 26 minutes before kickoff and it took Christian Heritage’s offense more than a quarter to wake up once the game started.
After a scoreless first quarter, senior Daniel Pierce brought the Lions to life with a pair of touchdown passes and a long punt return for another score and Christian Heritage routed Dominion, 30-8, at Christian Heritage Stadium on Friday night.
Dominion (0-2) put nine and 10 defenders in the box and dared the Lions (2-0) to throw the football, which they refused to do in the first quarter.
After gaining just 3 yards of offense in the opening period, the Lions decided to test Dominion’s aerial defense. Pierce found senior wide receiver Mason Sikes, his favorite receiver, for scoring strikes of 20 and 17 yards, wiping out Dominion’s early 8-0 lead.
Then Pierce fielded a Dominion punt on the run at the Lions’ 26 and rambled untouched 74 yards for a touchdown that stunned the Knights and pushed the Christian Heritage lead to 21-8 with 5:19 left in the first half.
The versatile Pierce, who also plays defensive back and handles punts and kickoffs, said it doesn’t matter to him how he scores as long as the Lions win.
“A TD is a TD,” said Pierce, who rushed for 94 yards on seven carries and completed 6 of 9 passes for 87 yards against Dominion. “They were stunting their linebackers and stopping our run early in the game. But we were able to throw the ball and that set up the run for later in the game.”
The Lions finished had 141 yards of total offense in the decisive second quarter and finished the game with 286, 199 coming on the ground.
Sikes caught five of Pierce’s six completions for 80 yards and the two scores.
“We ran the ball most of the first quarter and were getting nowhere,” Sikes said. “(Offensive coordinator Danny Carter) really likes to pound the ball but he knows we can get about what we want to in passing situations. Our passing actually opened up the running game, especially in the second half.”*
With Austin Lowe (44 yards), Logan Harr (37) and Ethan Turnmire (34) bulldozing the Knights’ up-front defense, the Lions gained 142 of their 199 rushing yards after halftime. That kept the Knights’ offense on the sidelines and when they did have the ball the Lions kept them out of the end zone.
Dominion’s only touchdown came on Christian Tucker’s 1-yard run on the second play of the second quarter. The Lions stoned them the rest of the way.
“We started getting after them,” senior defensive lineman Xavier Von Ewegen said. “It bothered us that they scored first.”
Turnmire, another senior, scored on a 1-yard run midway through the third quarter and sophomore place-kicker Nick Jang capped the Lions’ scoring with a 30-yard field goal with 10:04 left in the game.
“We have to get better for our next game,” Lions coach Mike Vaden said. “We can’t wait until the second quarter to start playing. Early they hit us in the mouth and made us like it. I don’t know if we were distracted when they showed up a little late, but we’ve got to be ready when the whistle blows.”
Quarterback Dwayne Carroll was Dominion’s main offensive threat, completing 8 of 17 passes for 124 yards. He was picked off once by Christian Heritage’s Marshall Williams in the second quarter.
