Taylor Blasts Defiance in 63-12 Rout at Turner
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UPLAND, Ind. – Taylor ran away from a visiting Defiance team on Saturday inside Turner Stadium, reaching seven wins in a season for the 10th time in program history and the first time since 2015 with a 63-12 blowout.
The Trojan defense highlighted a first half that saw the high-octane TU offensive struggle to get into gear. A strip-sack on the DC one-yard line on the first drive of the afternoon for the Yellow Jackets set up Taylor’s first score and a 40-yard pick-six by Jacob Hockett on Defiance’s fifth play from scrimmage made it a 14-0 game just 4:25 into the affair.
Defiance (3-6) went on to out-gain Taylor by a 239 to 149 mark in the first half, but the Trojans maintained a 28-12 lead thanks to the two defensive takeaways and a pair of touchdowns from Jameson Chessor.
After closing the half with a 62-yard scoring drive to finally get on track offensively, Taylor did not slow down out of the break. TU put up 21 points in the third on 172 total yards of offense and ended the contest with 42-unanswered points, with a 35-0 advantage over the final 30 minutes.
The Trojans finished the day with 475 total yards of offense, scoring at least 34 points for the eighth time in nine games and surpassing the 50-point barrier for the fifth time.
Five different TU players completed at least one pass with Taylor going deep into the bench as the game progressed. Jacob Hockett highlighted that group with 137 yards on 12-of-14 passing. As a unit, Taylor completed 21-of-24 attempts for 252 yards.
It was more of the same on the ground, with 11 Trojans taking at least one carry, combining for 223 rushing yards on 50 attempts. Nathan Parker led that group with 67 yards on 11 touches and one touchdown, while Chesser found the end zone three more times to become TU’s all-time single-season record-holder with 18 rushing scores.
Jack D’Arcy led nine Trojans who caught at least one pass, hauling in six receptions for 67 yards.
On the defensive side, 28 Trojans had at least one tackle, as the TU defense ravaged Defiance for 10 sacks, 12 tackles for negative yardage and three takeaways.
Jeremiah Mansfield was in the middle of most of that action, registering 3.5 sacks, with Parker Whitby adding 2.5 sacks. Aven Jones led the squad with nine tackles to improve to 110 on the season and Hockett filled the box score with eight tackles, one sack, three hits for lost yardage, one 40-yard pick-six and two additional quarterback pressures.
Taylor (7-2, 2-1 MSFA) will aim to reach eight wins in a season for the fourth time in program history and the first time since winning 10 in 1999 when it travels to Madonna (0-9, 0-3 MSFA) for a 1:00 pm start on Saturday, November 9.
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