DANVILLE — Dealing with adversity hasn’t been a strength this season for the Danville football team.
The Vikings have been without at least one projected starter in every game and things got worse for their Homecoming Game Friday night against the Champaign Centennial Chargers.
Danville, who were already without three starters because of injury and one because of grades, lost starting quarterback/linebacker Darius Jay to a concussion and starting linebacker and running back Amillian Beasley to a bone bruise.
Despite a next-man-up mentality, the Vikings simply wore down in the second half as the Chargers scored the game’s final 13 points to claim a 34-24 victory at Ned Whitesell Field.
“Just mental mistakes and fundamental things,’’ Danville coach Marcus Forrest said. “I was happy with how they still battled to the end, but we still need to get everyone onboard. We had more this week that fought through and came up with plays, but we just can’t give them up and expect to win.
“We still had opportunities, even through a couple of fumbles, some missed assignments in blitz blocks and drops, all of those type things.’’
So, what does Danville need to do to overcome all of these losses both in depth and on the field?
“As a team, we need to get our grades right and we need to fight harder through tough situations,’’ said senior Jayden Cottrell, a starter on both the offensive and defensive lines. “We simply shot ourselves in the foot tonight.
“In the fourth quarter, we had a chance to with the game. But, we gave up a late touchdown because we were mentally tired. It was our game, but we just gave up on ourselves.’’
The Vikings (1-3) had pulled within 28-24 with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 34-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Diddy Robinson to sophomore D’Mario Jackson.
Needing just a defensive stop and another score, Danville’s efforts were thwarted by a 10-play, 55-yard drive from Centennial, which included a pair of fourth down conversions. All 10 plays for the Chargers were on the ground as Zi’yir Aker and Kellen Davis-Foltz combined for 369 rushing yards.
“Right now, we are struggling at being mentally strong at the end of games,’’ said Robinson. “We wear down a lot in the fourth quarter. We just shut down and stop playing.
“If we play like we do in the first half through the whole game, we will be good.’’
Davis-Foltz put the finishing touches on the Charger victory with a 22-yard touchdown run on fourth down-and-3 as he slipped the tackle attempt of sophomore linebacker Deandre Mance.
“We just needed everyone doing their job to come up with one more play. It’s also having a couple of kids that are young and inexperienced. Having two linebackers out with injury put us in a tough situations’’ said Forrest as Mance and Jamie Clark were in for Jay and Beasley. “We also had a couple linemen that were tired because we still have one out with grades, that put them in a tough situation.
“It’s mental focus more than anything. It’s the ability to make that last little push that is needed to do your job. That’s part of growing as a football player and it’s something than can frustrate a coach because we are lacking that growth in a lot of areas. We have to do a better job of building that confidence so that they can grow and get better.’’
With the loss of Jay, it forced Robinson into the role of Mr. Do-It-All for the Vikings and the senior filled the bill.
Robinson accounted for 306 all-purpose yards against the Chargers and he scored three of the Vikings four touchdowns, while passing for the fourth.
“It was weird at first, but I had to step up for the team and play quarterback,’’ he said, along with his duties as kick returner and safety on defense. “I did a lot, but I also made a couple of mistakes.’’
But, his big plays like an 80-yard kickoff return along with touchdown runs of 35 and 3 yards gave the Vikings a chance to get a Homecoming victory.
“Those are the type of things that we come to expect from Diddy,’’ Forrest said. “He put us in a position to win that game, unfortunately, we didn’t get it done.
“Honestly, the loss of Darius was one of the toughest things that we had to overcome. To go without him, affected us offensively and defensively.’’
But after getting knocked out in the first quarter, Jay was apparently cleared to return at the start of the third quarter.
After completing three straight passes in the second half — two to Jerry Reed III and one to Robinson — Centennial (3-1) questioned his return to the officials. After some discussion, it was ruled that Jay must sit out as he wasn’t cleared by the athletic trainer from Carle.
“When it happened, we had the trainer look at him and he said, ‘I don’t know your baseline or where you are at, I can just go off an assumption’ and that placed him into the concussion protocol,’’ Forrest said. “We are in a tight bind because we have to rely on people that don’t know our kids to make decisions on our kids.’’
So, why did he return after halftime?
“Before halftime and after halftime, I told Darius that more than anything we were worried about his health. We have a season to go, he has a lifetime to live and we weren’t going to do anything for just one game,’’ Forrest said. “We definitely needed him to be there, but his health was the most important thing. That’s why getting a full-time trainer to be there with us is so important.
“I was told that the trainer said it was up the athletics director. His mom was down and the trainer said the same thing to her. I spoke to Darius. His mom spoke to Darius. More than a trainer, his mom knows him. It was that person it was up to them. He went to the Centennial sideline and reversed what he said. That led to confusion in the third quarter.’’
Danville’s next game was originally scheduled to be a home game against Crete Monee, but because of the official shortage in Central Illinois, the game has been moved to Crete. Kickoff at Warrior Field is set for 7 p.m.