After a scoreless first quarter in Troy, the Florence Falcons leapt upon an undermanned Trojan football team to crank out a final winning score of 44-12. 

The loss marks Troy’s third in a row, dropping to 0-3 on the season.

Troy had several sustained drives, but turnovers were brutal. The Trojans fumbled the ball away three times and junior quarterback Gabe Hickman tossed several interceptions.

“There were a lot of turnovers,” said Troy coach Jim Dasios. “We don’t have a large margin to make mistakes in the first place, and they certainly didn’t help.”

Several of Hickman’s interceptions came not from a bad read of the defense, but of his receivers knocking the ball high and into the waiting arms of a Florence player.

Even so, the Trojan defense bedeviled the running game of the Falcons in the first quarter.

“Troy was overplaying some of our stuff,” said Florence head coach Terry Maki. “We were just trying to stick with our basic game. We had a couple new guys in and weren’t trying to be too fancy.”

Florence quarterback Aaron Ward shined, hitting receivers in the flat, across the middle and downfield. That’s not to mention the wheels on the six-foot three-inch senior.

The first score of the game was an 83-yard scamper from Ward. He tacked on another rushing touchdown before half to put the Falcons up 12-0.  

Nine touchdowns were scored in the game, but neither team appeared to have a place kicker and both teams went for two-point conversions after every score.

Troy succeeded in breaking up six of these consecutively, but the law of averages fell into place for Florence, and they tacked on two after touchdown No. seven.

The Trojans remained scoreless until the fourth quarter, when Hickman connected with senior wide receiver Andrew Haggerty for a 42-yard touchdown with 7:07 left to play.      

Luke Haggerty, junior running back and wide receiver, was an aggressive component of the Trojan offense and he was most successful on a sweep to the outside Troy ran several times. He converted a few first downs for the Trojans, but the result wasn’t ideal for the athletic Haggertys.

Despite a third straight loss, the brothers promised victory Friday in Eureka at Lincoln County.

“We guarantee a victory,” Luke said.

“That’s coming straight from the coach,” said Andrew. “We’re going to win.”