| The Knight's have a very difficult schedule. Ahead of them are annual powerhouses Meadville and Oil City. Next week they face General McLane which will be akin to playing Titusville, who the Knight's dropped their season opener to 34-16. McLane, now 1-1 is coming off a loss to Fort LeBoeuf who finds themselves 2-0 on the season. Franklin's best shot at a W comes at the end of the month against the poor Warren Dragons who have yet to put any points on the score board. They'll need to stay healthy however if they want to put together mini win streak. The following week they have Seneca who also appears to be struggling thus far. All other teams on their schedule are looking pretty formidable. Last night they knew they in for a rough time against Hickory “We picked them to win District 10,” said head coach Matt Turk after the game. “That’s one of the toughest teams we’ll play all year." The ever-optimistic Franklin head coach was helped by key injuries to his starting quarterback Jason Carey and speedy tailback Toby Sanchez is out for the season. Not to mention losing one of the best legs in District 10, Nate Pfennigwerth who was wearing a neck brace on the sidelines; he will also be out for a couple weeks. Last week’s game against Titusville, the Knights had over 300 yards of offense. Against Hickory it was a much different story. Sans a 28-yard pass to Buckley and the junior varsity playing Hickory's junior varsity in the second half that included a 60-yard run in the second half by freshman Kaden Mincer there wasn't much positive movement of the ball. Mincer, a freshman, had nearly 100 yards rushing in the second half under the running clock. Beyond Mincer's big run, Freddie Blackhurst, Jacob Balsamo and Landon Lynch all had positive yardage totals on the night. With the minus yardage totals in the first half the team rushing stats were under 100 yards for the game. “When you hear me talk about our future, you just saw it,” Turk said. “I’m serious, that JV team went out there and kicked Titusville’s butt (last week) and they just went back and threw it on Hickory.” Both squads played reserves or junior varsity players most of the second half with the Hornets up 48-6 at the half. “You see me positive every week. Do I like giving 60 points up? No. But you noticed, we came out and made them punt, we’re not afraid. There is a fundamental difference between (this squad and last year's team that went 0-10)." Defense is another story. The Knights still struggle with wrapping up players and bringing them down. The Hornets had a couple 50-yard plays in the game and racked up over 400 yards of total offense. Franklin was held to under 150 yards. “We came in and we didn’t have our starting quarterback, our starting running back and our starting kicker. I feel like we had a really good first quarter, but they wore us down,” Turk said. At the end of the first quarter, thanks to a muffed punt and an intentional grounding penalty by the Hornets, the Knight's capitalized on good field position with a 28-yard pass from Brandon Lynch to Cole Buckley. It was 14-6 at the end of the quarter But the game got out of reach in the second quarter and they opened the second half with the running mercy clock. It wasn't long before both teams took their starters out. It ended at 63-14. Next week the Knight's hit the road for the first time this season to take on General McLane who are 1-1 after losing to Fort LeBoeuf Friday 38-28. McLane has scored 55 points on the season with a win over Slippery Rock in the first game. Franklin has just 30 points thusfar. McLane has given up 55 to Franklin’s 97. |          |
They will play at 7 p.m. next Friday at McLane.
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