Hall pulls away from Mendota in second half to earn first win

SPRING VALLEY – With the Hall-Putnam County and Mendota football teams looking for their first win of the season, all involved knew Friday’s Three Rivers Conference Mississippi Division game was not going to be easy.

In the first half, the Red Devils and the Trojans traded jabs, first downs and touchdowns as every time one team scored, the other would match.

However, after first-half adjustments, Hall-PC continued to score while finding a way to stop Mendota’s offense en route to a 62-27 victory.

“I’m excited for the guys. Our Thursday wasn’t the greatest. We had a come to Jesus meeting,” Hall coach Logan Larson said after his first career win. “The guys finally understand how hard it is to win a game and the process of it. We had a meeting, the guys responded, and I thought they played really well. They executed and did everything we asked of them.

“Mendota played a good game and did some tough stuff. They are huge up front, which isn’t a great match up for us. We executed, fought through, rotated some guys in the back end, up front. We kept battling. I told them, ‘If you want to win, you have to push and fight.’ It’s not easy to put up the numbers we did and win a football game.”

Hall scored first to cap off a three-play, 41-yard drive when junior quarterback Dylan Glynn found junior Braden Curran in the end zone on a 39-yard pass.

Mendota used 16 plays to drive 80 yards and score on a 35-yard pass from junior quarterback Aden Tillman to senior wide receiver Rhett Watson to take a 7-6 lead.

The entire first half was score for score as Hall-PC (1-2, 1-0 TRC Mississippi) answered with an 11-yard run by Curran with 15.6 seconds left in the first frame to take a 13-7. Mendota then scored with 10:22 on the second quarter clock when Tillman found Jayden Lesley on a 26-yard TD pass to retake the lead, 15-13.

“We showed glimpses of what we are capable of,” Mendota coach Keegan Hill said. “We were within striking distance going into the half. Hall played harder longer than we did and they earned the victory. We will find what went well against the Red Devils and maximize it next week.”

After a Hall fumble, Mendota recovered, and the Trojans turning the ball over on downs, the Red Devils took a 20-15 lead into halftime after Glynn found pay dirt on a 4-yard QB keeper with 13.5 ticks on the clock.

The Trojans continued the sparring in the beginning of the third quarter with an 11-play, 75-yard drive resulting in a Tillman 21-yard TD pass to senior Braiden Freeman for a 21-20 MHS lead.

Then Hall-PC delivered multiple knockdown blows resulting in the TKO.

The Red Devils scored six straight touchdowns as Curran (22-yard run), junior Aiden RedCliff (40-yard run), Redcliff (9-yard run), Curran (50-yard run), Glynn (45-yard fumble recovery) and Redcliff (10-yard run) scored to take a 62-21 advantage.

With a running clock in motion, Trojan freshman Kadrean Price took a 37-yard run into the end zone.

“We stopped ourselves offensively in the first half. We should have put up another touchdown or two. We had a good drive going, had a bad snap and lost a fumble. They had a couple of great plays on us. The Mendota skill guys are good, big and caught the ball well,” Larson said. “When we got a few turnovers, the momentum went our way and we kept it. We made a couple of big plays and the flow of the game stayed in our direction. We kept playing and our guys did a great job.

“The reason we didn’t run the ball well in the first two games was because of up front. The reason we were able to against Mendota was because of up front. We were able to execute. We blocked guys, even though Mendota is big and it wasn’t a great matchup for us. They fought and put our game plan into action.”

The Red Devils’ defense forced three Trojan fumbles as Glynn recovered two of them; one for a touchdown.

Glynn finished with a rushing TD, a passing TD (4 of 6, 108 yards) and a defensive score, while Curran scored three rushing touchdowns (nine carries for 150 yards) and a receiving touchdown (two catches for 53 yards), while Redcliff rushed into the end zone three times (15 carries for 159 yards).

For Mendota, Tillman was 10 of 15 in the air for 168 yards and three touchdowns and he recorded 100 yards on the ground on 21 attempts.

Lesley was his top target with four receptions for 69 yards.

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Hall High School players Aiden Redcliff (left) and Cameron Spradling (right) celebrate a touchdown against Mendota during the game at Richard Nesti Stadium on September 13, 2024. (Kyle Russell)