The Fayette defense had Carrollton on the ropes in the first half of Friday’s game, but the Trojans kept countering the knockout punch.

Carrollton converted a third-and-23, a fourth-and-10, and a fourth-and-19 with three passes of over 25 yards to take a 13-12 lead into the half.

In the second half, the Fayette offense continued to grind out yards on the ground. The Falcon defense forced three turnovers as Fayette scored 22 straight points and went on to a 34-19 win in the first round of the district playoffs.

“It means a lot for me, because I get to keep going,” said senior linebacker Dillan Lembke, who had a sack and led the defense with seven tackles.  

“I’ve played for 10 years I think, and I get to go on to the second round.”

Fayette came out of the halftime locker room and went 52 yards in seven plays to take the lead. All 52 yards came on the ground as Garren Vroman scored his third touchdown of the day, a six-yard carry that put the Falcons ahead 20-13.

A 31-yard completion put Carrollton in position to answer, but Kaden Polson recovered a fumble to end the Trojan drive.

The Falcons chewed clock on an 86-yard drive that included a 45-yard rush from Vroman. A three-yard touchdown carry by DJ Moore put the Falcons ahead 28-13. Carrollton’s second possession of the half began with just 1:47 left in the third quarter.  

“It was just advantageous to keep the ball out of (quarterback Gavin Claud’s) hands and let us run the football,” Fayette coach Mike Thompson said.

“That quarterback can sling it and the plays they made, most of them were just him throwing it up for grabs and then they had guys that just went and got the football tonight. We had some guys in pretty good position on most of those and they just made a better play than we did.”

It looked like Carrollton would pull within a score of Fayette when Cedar Metz went up over Polson to grab a pass in the endzone. Metz came down with the ball, but when the players got up, it was Polson who had possession.

 “I was waiting for the deep ball, it was a 50-50 ball,” Polson said. “He had the ball, but I pulled his hand to make sure it wasn’t a good catch. When we landed it was right in between us and I ripped it away.”

Polson intercepted two passes in addition to his fumble recovery. He caught an eight yard touchdown pass from Ben Wells in the fourth quarter to put the Falcons ahead 34-13.

“We didn’t want it to end the same way it did last year with them,” Polson said.

“We tried to come mentally prepared, because some of those times when we lost, we weren’t mentally prepared. This week we had a good week of practice, we were focused and we didn’t want to lose to them like we did last year.”

Fayette has played Carrollton four times over the last two seasons. Fayette lost both matchups in 2019 including a 29-8 defeat in the postseason.

This year, the Falcons rushed for 333 yards, averaging almost seven yards per carry.

“Our offensive line had the mindset that we were not going to give up any tackles in the backfield,” said senior cener Zane Rice. “We were not ready to go home, we did not want to go home anytime soon. So were went out there and handled business. We got the job done.”

Vroman finished with 209 yards and three touchdowns on 29 carries. Moore carried seven times for 63 yards and a score. Wells was 6-11 for 25 yards through the air, a season-low for pass attempts. Wells picked up 53 yards on the ground on just four carries.

“My mentality was, let’s run it at them,” Thompson said. “I know we can throw the football, but this is a team that’s had trouble stopping the run against teams that can run the football.

“Let’s just run it at them and see what happens. When we were able to really start run it at them and they couldn’t stop it… when you find something that has success, if they don’t get adjusted to it and get it stopped, then we’re just going to keep hitting it a little bit.”

The Trojans had three receivers with at least 70 yards and a touchdown each, but Fayette held Carrollton to 13 yards on the ground after sacking the quarterback five times for a loss of 43 yards.

“I thought we ran to the ball and were more physical tonight than we have been, which was was a good sign for us,” Thompson said. “I thought we ran to the ball really well on defense and played with some emotion.”

Chase Allen had two sacks and batted down a pass. Avery Powell had four solo tackles and five tackles total. Moore had five tackles and a sack, and Chris Brown had a sack as well. Cody Hilgedick had an interception return of 27 yards in the first half. Fayette won the turnover battle 4-0.

Fayette moves on to face the no. 1 seed Marceline in the district semifinal. The Falcons threw four interceptions, including a pick-six in a 27-0 loss to the Tigers on September 18.

Fayette was outrushed 212-63 in that matchup, and Thompson thinks the Fayette running game will be key in the rematch.

“We haven’t moved the ball on them because of what they do defensively,” Thompson explained.

“Us not adjusting to it and not being able to pick it up. We never got past the confusion last time we played them, we never found something that got us downhill momentum.

“If we can get the guys understanding where they need to go… I know what we need to do, if we can just get our guys fast enough off the ball to do it.”

Marceline is ranked sixth in the state in Class 1 with a record of 8-1. The Tigers beat Harrisburg 56-8 last week, and defeated Westran 45-6 the week before.

“Their effort is great,” Thompson said.

“I think that’s what sets them apart from everybody else. Their effort’s really good and then in big games it goes up. They don’t seem to be nervous. They really get after it.

“We’ve got to match their intensity. They’re not going to beat themselves. If we don’t beat ourselves, and everybody plays really well, it should be a really good game.”