Mt. Pleasant football starts well, fades out

BURLINGTON - Mt. Pleasant came for a fight in the first quarter, but a speedy Burlington team had too much firepower in the Panthers’ district road loss on Friday night.

The Grayhounds scored 48 points in the final three quarters to hand Mt. Pleasant a 56-3 loss, the Panthers’ third in a row to start district play.

Mt. Pleasant did show some early promise. The Panthers drove downfield and scored on a 21-yard field goal by Owen Vansickel to take an early 3-0 lead.

From that point forward, it was all Grayhounds.

Burlington took its first lead later in the first period when Bryant Williams scored on a 2-yard run. That was the first of three on the day for the Grayhound star.

Burlington led the game 8-3 after one quarter, 32-3 at half, and 48-3 after three quarters.

Mt. Pleasant had just 127 yards on offense. The Panthers’ best movement came out of quarterback Carson Coleman, who ran the ball for 48 yards.

Isaiah Albright had 28 yards rushing in the loss. Payton Hagans ran for 23.

Coleman completed two passes for zero yards. Jacob Richtman led the team in passing yards, with 28, when he connected with Wyatt Woodsmall for the longest passing play of the day.

The Panthers are now 1-6 on the season. They’ll try to improve on that and an 0-3 Class 4A District 3 record when they host Clinton (1-6, 0-3) next Friday.