A shanked Midland Valley punt gave Aiken great field position, only for the Hornets to fumble the ball right back for the third time – Jordan McKie fell on this one, adding to earlier recoveries by Brayden Gerard and Aaron Adams. The Aiken defense produced two stops in the backfield to force another punt, but Midland Valley’s responded with stops of its own to force Aiken into a fourth-and-8 at its own 32.
Padgett took the snap and eluded the Mustangs’ pass rush, stepped forward and used his eyes to move a defensive back toward McKenzie, Padgett’s most frequent target, to gain just enough separation to hit Pope down the sideline with nothing but green turf in front of him.
Zachary Groseclose’s extra point capped the Hornets’ 21-0 run, but the Aiken coaches cautioned their players that with 2:10 still on the clock the game wasn’t over.
Franklin immediately proved them right.
“It was exciting, that’s for sure. My heart rate’s going,” Dorn said. “We talk about it all the time, we’ve got to finish. Any phase of the game can help us win. We spend a lot of time on all three, at least probably close to an hour worth of practice just on special teams, and it showed right there.”
Aiken had one more chance and quickly moved the ball near midfield before coming up short on fourth-and-5 from its own 46. Just like that, a potential trajectory-changing comeback victory morphed into the Hornets’ sixth consecutive loss.
“It wasn’t a tough one. It was not a tough one. Yeah, it’s a loss, but we talk about not getting caught up in results,” Hibbitts said. “That team beat this team 55-0 last year, and we were down three scores (Friday). I wouldn’t call it a tough one. We just didn’t finish. I mean, they made one more play than we did. We were actually just over there talking about how we’re so close. So close. We were playing with seven freshmen tonight. Hey, it is what it is.”
Geter completed 10 of his first 13 passes for 175 yards and three touchdowns, one each to Jaylen Washington, Kaleb Hester and Allen Cummings, and running back Preston Smith rushed for 97 yards to surpass 1,000 for the season.
