The Mattoon Green Wave football team hit the road to take on Mt. Zion in the Apollo Conference opener on a very damp Friday night of football.
The Green Wave picked up their first win of the season last week against Jersey and Mt. Zion came in riding some momentum after defeating Bethalto Civic Memorial by five touchdowns last week.
Nick Poorman threw an early interception in the first quarter which led to a 45 yard touchdown pass for Mt. Zion to take the early 6-0 lead.
Poorman then threw another first quarter interception, this time Mt. Zion’s Kuhle returns it to the house for a 37 yard touchdown and a quick 13-0 lead of Mattoon in the first quarter.
Mattoon ended up with five turnovers in the game as they drop to 1-3 with the 48-19 loss to Mt. Zion.
Poorman finally gets away from some pressure in the first half and hit a wide open Michael Smith for a 71 yard touchdown pass and Mattoon pulled to within one possession.
Early in the second quarter, Poorman again gets some big passes and ends a drive with a 25 yard touchdown pass to Alec Raboin to quickly tie the game back up at 13-13.
Kuhle finds a whole in the Mattoon secondary and scores a big 90 yard touchdown on the first play of the drive for Mt. Zion to regain the lead yet again.
After a Mattoon punt, Kuhle is open again and after breaking a couple tackles, goes 80 more yards for another touchdown and a 27-13 lead still in the first half.
Mt. Zion scored one more time in the first half then was dominant in the second half, scoring two more touchdowns and holding Mattoon to one. Mt. Zion out gained Mattoon 540 yards to 373 and had 19 first downs compared to Mattoon’s 10.
With the loss, Mattoon falls to 1-3 on the season and 0-1 in Apollo conference play and will head to O’Brien Stadium at Eastern Illinois to take on Charleston (2-2) in the Coles County Clash friday night.
Mt. Zion improves to 3-1 and 1-0 in conference play with the big win. The Braves will play at home against undefeated Taylorville (4-0) next friday night.
We got to chat with coach Troy Johnson after the game. Check out what he had to say:
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