By Rodney Young
NRVSports.net
RINER – Playing on a mild Friday night, the Auburn Eagles hosted the Fort Chiswell Pioneers in a Mountain Empire District contest. The Eagles were rude hosts as they scored six times in the first quarter en route to a manhandling 69-7 victory.
Auburn junior running back Ethan Brunk scored four touchdowns for the Eagles in the first half. He scored on a run of 72 yards, caught passes of 28 and 68 for touchdowns, and returned a punt for 62 yards, as he accounted for 230 yards for the Eagles.
He had help as James King scored on a 41-yard punt return for six, and Gavin Neuse returned a punt for a score on a 28-yard return. Asher Price, a junior tackle, scooped up a Pioneer fumble and rumbled 50 yards for a score. The Eagles had three punt returns for touchdowns and a fumble recovery for six.
The Eagles (2-1) scored six times in the first quarter and led 56-0 at intermission. A J Tuono would score on a 12-yard run with 7:10 remaining in the third quarter to go up 63-0. Tuono would score again in the fourth quarter, this time on a six -yard run off tackle, but the point-after kick was wide left, leaving the score 69-0 early in the fourth quarter. Placekicker Eli Olinger would hit nine of 10 point-after kicks for the victorious Eagles.
Fort Chiswell finally got on the board as Dakota Bailey hit Aiden Rooney in the back of the end zone for six, and Bailey’s kick made it 69-7 with 4:12 showing on the running clock.
A running clock actually started at the start of the second quarter in a sloppy-played game. The two teams were flagged 21 times for 163 yards, and that’s not counting offsetting penalties. Each team had a player ejected, too.
Auburn head coach Scott Mikowicz said, “ We scored early, and we took advantage of some mistakes. We’ve been on the other side of these kinds of scores.”
Fort Chiswell had six first downs at halftime, with five of those coming on Auburn penalties. The Pioneers didn’t have a defensive tackle until under three minutes left in the first half. They committed four huge turnovers, as they had 16 rushes for only 13 yards at intermission.
Pioneer head coach Cory Mabry remarked, “We made mistakes and turnovers early, and Auburn took advantage. We were down a lot before the game had hardly started, it seemed. We didn’t tackle and didn’t block. Auburn is good and has some good athletes.”
Fort Chiswell falls to 0-3 and takes on undefeated Carroll County next Friday, with kickoff slated for 7 pm in Hillsville.
Auburn 42 14 7 6- 69
Fort Chiswell 0 0 0 – 7 -7
Aub- Brunk -28 pass from Branch
Aub- King- 41 punt ret.
Aub- Brunk- 62 punt ret.
Aub- Neuse- 45 run
Aub- Brunk -72 run
Aub- Price- 50 fumble ret.
Aub- Brunk- 68 pass from Branch
Aub- Neuse -28 punt ret.
Aub- Tuono- 12 run
Aub- Tuono- 6 run
Rushing – Aub- Brunk 1-72, Tuono 11-120, Oley 3-3, Sale 2-18, Neuse 1-45, FC – Webster 6-21, Bailey 6-23, Caudle 1-2, Moody 6-7, Maxwell 1 minus (-3), Halsey 1 minus (-1)
Passing – Aub – Branch 2-2- 0 INTs.-2 Tds. – 96 yds., FC – Bailey – 10-24- 2 Ints. 1 Td.- 157 yds.
Receiving– Aub – Brunk 2-96, FC- Maxwell 5-95, Rooney 3-27, Viars 1-28, Hicks 1-7
First Downs – Aub- 14, FC -11
Fumbles– Lost- Aub -0, FC – 2
Penalties-Yds.– Aub- 8-85, FC – 13- 78
Tot Yds.– Aub- 354, FC – 206
Total TO’s – Aub- 0, FC – 4
Punts – Avg. – Aub- 1 – 37.0, FC – 5- 18.8
