Story by Jon Dinan
ROSCOE — In a battle of newly combined teams, Deposit-Hancock defeated Ro­s- coe/Downsville 20-7 in a non-league game called with 3:40 to play in the third quarter due to torrential rain and a local tornado warning.
A few costly penalties by Roscoe-Downsville made a big difference in the game. In the second quarter, a Ros­coe/Downsville offensive line­man jumped offside inside the Hancock/Downsville five-yard line spoiling a golden scoring opportunity.
In the third, Dylan Murphy broke loose on a would-be 50 yard touchdown run that was called back because of a holding penalty that happened away from the play.
Roscoe/Downsville enjoyed a brief 7-6 lead in the first quarter that came after a beautifully exectuted 21-yard pass play from quarterback Colin Tallman to Dylan Murphy. But Hancock/Deposit dominated the contest from that point forward tacking on two more unanswered touchdowns.
Hancock/Deposit quarterback Matt Mills had 10 rushes for 60 yards and a touchdown. He also threw a 15-yard passing touchdown to wide reciever Austin Decker. Mills came up just a yard shy of his second rushing TD in the third quarter. On the following down, Mills handed the ball to his running back Ryan Smith who busted through Roscoe/Downsville’s goal-line defense for the score making it 18-7 in favor of Hancock/Deposit. They would go onto convert the two point conversion on a short pass from Mills to Decker.
Decker shined on both offense and special teams. He had two 40-plus yard punt returns, a touchdown reception, an extra point reception, and a heads-up play to retain posession for Hancock/Deposit after the ball was grazed by a potential Roscoe/ Downsville return- man on a punt in the third quarter.