Original Article courtesy Brent Jamison, www.bcrnews.com
PRINCETON — It was an eventful Friday for Princeton’s Ronde Worrels.
After suffering an injury to three of his fingers in shop class in school just a few hours earlier in the day, the freshman running back rushed for 105 yards and had two touchdowns in the Tigers’ 47-7 homecoming victory over Erie-Prophetstown.
With his right hand heavily taped, Worrels set the tone for the evening with a 53-yard touchdown run on the first play of the game as Princeton scored early and often throughout.
Worrels also added a highlight catch to end the first half as quarterback Beck Robbins threw a pass intended for Garrett Allen that was tipped by a Panthers defender right into his diving hands with 4.5 seconds left. The touchdown catch gave the Tigers a 34-0 halftime lead.
“I don’t know how it happened, I just saw the ball and caught it,” Worrels said. “It just happened to tip into my hands.”
Princeton coach Ryan Pearson joked that the play wasn’t exactly how he drew it up.
“It worked out in favor and Ronde made a heck of a grab,” he said.
Overall, Princeton had 362 yards of total offense, with 261 of those yards coming on the ground. Robbins and Dallas Hill each had a pair of touchdown runs and Conner Dickens’ three-yard touchdown run with 2:11 left in the third quarter put the running clock in motion.
Defensively, the Tigers held the Panthers to just 165 total yards and forced three interceptions. Dickens had two of those picks and Trevor Tate added the other.
“Great overall team effort by our kids,” Pearson said. “There wasn’t any individual standout performances in my mind, it was just a great team win. Our goal is to finish the year off on a positive note and we are one step closer to that after tonight’s win.”
“Coach was talking all week that we need to come together and it would be a big win if we can get it,” said Robbins, who finished with 101 yards passing and 90 yards rushing. “We just came together and played how we needed to play.”
Panthers coach Chuck Milem was disappointed with his team’s effort.
“We weren’t ready to play and didn’t show up tonight,” he said. “I thought in the beginning of the third quarter we showed some life but after that I’m not sure what to say.”