Rocket's are pretty solid, cruise to big homecoming win

It took Titusville only three plays to hit the end zone in the 56-0 homecoming route against the winless Warren Dragons. It was like deja-vu -a week prior against Conneaut it also only took three touches to score.
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Titusville’s offensive line is powerful and they create enough mayhem up front to allow the backs time to develop big plays. 

​Titusville’s all-time leading rusher Jaxon Covell’s first gain was a modest four-yard run. That play was follwed by a 20-yard pass from Ian McDonald to Kameron Mong. Covell then added 33-yards on his touchdown scamper.
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In that opening drive the Rockets showed they were going to mix up their plays in order to achieve success.

​Against the struggling Dragons they could try a few things on for size.
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“We brought in a couple bunch sets that we wanted to work out that worked pretty well,” coach Mike Reynolds said after the game. “(McDonald) is beginning to read some things. That, we like to see this time of the year. When you get into week six, seven, eight ,nine, ten in the season everybody sees everybody on film and it gets tougher and tougher.
​ Teams get better and are more prepared for you because they understand what you do. So we need to continue to evolve.”

Warren was no match for the Rockets. Of the Dragon’s 54 players only two are seniors. They are now riding a 15 game losing streak.

Brett Schmidt, Covell and Mong set the tone on defense with a four and out on a Mong snuff fourth and one attempt. Four plays later on a 19-yard pass from McDonald to Mong the score was 14-0. Max Chatham was perfect on the night kicking extra points.
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One play after the Dragons punted aginl, McDonald tossed an almost lateral pass to Covell who took it 60-yards for the third score in the quarter.

The Rocket’s had only run eight plays and were up 21 nothing.

Mong again came up big on defense knocking down a Warren pass to force another punt.
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On their next position to touchdown machine went right back to work.

​Covell had a big 43 -yard run followed by an 18-yard reception to Brett Schmidt from McDonald before Covell took two plays to go 18 yards and run the score up to 28-0.
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Warren ran eight plays but didn’t get very far before punting away again.
 
On the next drive Mong carried the bulk of the load capped off with a 17-yard touchdown.

The Rockets added another score on a seven-yard pass to Schmidt.

They took a 42-0 lead into half as well as a running clock mercy rule to start the second half.

Covell scored again on a 21-yard run in the third.

Jaydin O’Neill capped off the Rocket scoring with a seven-yard run for a touchdown.
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Covell had just over 200-yards on the night putting him over 1,000 on the season.

McDonald had another stellar night with 214-yards passing - 89 to Mong, 67 to Covell and 58 to Schmidt.

“Titusville does homecoming unlike any other team,” Reynolds said. “The kids feed off that energy.”
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The coach said the team functioned on a high level in all three phases of the game Friday… we took a step up.”

Reynolds is hesitant to put a player up at the top of the list, because this is a team that plays together as a full unit. “We just have so many guys doing a great job,” he said, crediting his offensive line.

​But he credited Mong for his monster game both defensively and offensively. 
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“You gotta talk about Kamo, because when you see big runs  and scoring opportunities he is blocking underneath and we had some nice passes to him, but defensively he was a lights out night, I believe he had at least three sacks and more tackles for losses than I could count.” 

JJ Miller was his usual brick wall on defense recording 14 tackles 

Titusville moves to 4-1 halfway through the season.

They face North East next week who are 1-4 with a tough loss 28-23 to LeBoeuf two weeks ago and getting their first wi with a 38-7 crushing of Franklin.

Though North East’s season isn’t lighting up the W’s column Reynolds knows they cannot take them lightly.
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“You can’t overlook those guys. Look at District 10, it’s a tough conference,” Reynolds said prior to knowing North East beat Franklin.“The triple A bracket is overloaded, so when you look at (North East) and what they do in games… even though they haven’t won any yet, we see them doing effective things.”
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After next week the regional schedule kicks in with huge tests against Hickory at home and Slippery Rock and Sharon on the road.

Their playoff hopes will likely be determined by these three games.

“We definitely took a step  this week, there is no doubt. Last week we scored points, but there were things we made mistakes on that we needed to correct. We were hitting on all eight cylinders tonight. We had great communication… we had great composure,” Reynolds said. “We had a couple situations where it got heated on the field and we saw our guys back out of it and control themselves. That’s really important as the season goes on to have that kind of composure and character because we know we’re going to be in some barnburners coming down the road and we need to be able to handle that kind of mental adversity. I’m very proud of that.”​
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See who won homecoming queen at Eight & 27.
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More photos below.

For photos from all season please click sayerrich.zenfolio.com/p902630512.

For photos from all season please click sayerrich.zenfolio.com/p902630512.