[LeeCoUKFan]

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Somerset — Pulaski County’s Alex Abner spent most of this week in the hospital, eventually having to have surgery performed on an elbow for an unknown infection.

After last night’s opening round of the KHSAA’s football playoffs, the Maroons senior tailback had left Perry County Central’s season on life support.

Abner returned to the field on Friday evening and in a big way for PC.

The Maroon senior scored four touchdowns against the Commodores, with three of those coming on TD passes from quarterback Zach Eastham, and as a result, head coach Justin Haddix and Perry County Central had no chance whatsoever.

Pulaski County rolled up 502 yards of total offense in this affair, and despite struggling for much of the first half offensively, it was Johnny Hines and the defending regional champion Maroons moving on with an impressive, 37-6 victory over the visiting Commodores.

So coach Hines, what about the struggles in the first half offensively tonight?

“I thought it was a thing of beauty, because anytime you’re moving on in the playoffs — it’s a good thing,” stated a very happy Pulaski County coach, after watching his team roll to 10-1 on the year with the win.

“They (Perry County Central) kind of threw us a little bit of a curveball coming out and playing some man to man coverage,” pointed out Hines. “We had not seen that in any game from them, and we had seen over half of their games on film this year. They had not played that way at all, and we kind of stumbled due to that, but Zach (Eastham) did a good job of making some adjustments.”

Indeed, it was Pulaski County’s quarterback winning the head to head battle with Perry County Central’s Kyle Huff in this one.

[SIZE="2"]Huff and Eastham came in as the top two ranked quarterbacks statistically in the state of Kentucky in Class 5 A this season, but on this night, Eastham proved he was the better gunslinger of the two.

Huff led Class 5 A coming into the PC game with 2,280 yards passing, to go along with 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions.

Eastham meanwhile had tallied 2,156 yards through the year this year, throwing for 30 TD passes against just eight picks.

Last night, Eastham won the battle between the two, connecting on 19 of 32 passes for 322 yards and three TD’s, while Huff completed 15 of 26 pass attempts for just 103 yards and no TD’s.
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However, it was on the ground where Eastham got his club off and rolling in this encounter.

The PC quarterback rolled into the end zone for a 10-yard score with 3:45 remaining in the first quarter of play giving his club a 7-0 lead.

Late in the first half, with the score still 7-0 in favor of the Maroons, a four-play sequence totally changed the tone of this contest.

The Commodores, thanks to a Pulaski fumble, had the ball third and goal from the Maroon 1-yard line with just over a minute to go in the opening half, but on back to back runs up the middle, the PC defense held its ground, coming up with a huge goal-line stand.

Two plays later, with 1:00 left on the clock in the first half, Eastham hit Abner for an 81-yard scoring toss, and that two-score swing had given Hines and crew a 14-0 lead at the half, and Perry County Central was in big-time trouble.

“That was a huge sequence there at the end of the first half and our defense was just great all night,” stated coach Hines.

“They played great, because Perry County Central is a really explosive team,” Hines remarked. “They have tremendous speed and explosiveness on the outside, and I thought our defense did a very good job of containing the run and got after the quarterback really well.”

Thanks to the huge 14-point swing at the end of the first half, the Maroons carried that momentum gained at the end of the half into the third period.

Eastham hooked up with Abner yet again on a 30-yard touchdown pass, Abner scored on a 15-yard run, and a Perry Central snap out of the back of the end zone over the punter’s head gave the Maroons a safety, and a 30-point cushion through three periods of play.

Abner capped the scoring for PC and his big night with 7:28 remaining in the fourth period, as his 25-yard scoring run extended the lead out to 37-0 at that juncture in favor of the Maroons.

For the game, Abner rushed for 79 yards on 11 carries and one score, while hauling in 7 receptions for 157 yards and 3 TD’s.

Not a bad night indeed for a guy that was lying in a hospital bed the day before the game.

“Alex just had a tremendous night and it was great to see him out there,” stated Hines.

“I’ll tell you what, we really appreciate Dr. (Jesse) Pace and what he’s been able to do for us this year in helping us keep our kids healthy and on the field,” continued the PC head coach. “It really was amazing to see Alex come out here tonight and play the way that he did. It was kind of reminiscent of the Southwestern game a couple of years ago when he came out and had that incredible game with all of those kickoff returns for touchdowns.”

With the win, Pulaski County moves on to round two of the Class 5 A playoffs, and the Maroons will return home to PC Field next Friday night at 7:30 p.m., when Hines and company will square off against the 8-3 Clay County Tigers.

Clay County advanced to round two of the playoffs with last night’s 62-22 thrashing over Lincoln County.

http://somerset-kentucky.com/localsports...h-37-6-win