CHILLICOTHE — On the latest episode of the Cartae Ligon Show, the junior scores four touchdowns and carries Chillicothe to a win.
For most, it’s a rerun.
And if you haven’t watched it yet, it’s one of the most thrilling series you’ll see this fall.
The Cavaliers’ spectacular running back started the season with a bang on Friday night, pacing his teammates to a 34-0 win over Circleville at Herrnstein Field.
“I’ve coached really good players. But I don’t think I’ve coached anyone as special as Cartae. He’s different,” Chillicothe coach TJ Carper said. “He’s a pleasure to have because the way he practices is the same way that he plays. So I know what I’m going to get in a game. He’s going to do his job. He just makes plays and sometimes, it’s out of nothing.”
Ligon logged three rushing touchdowns in the opener while picking off a pass on the defensive side of the football, and running it back to the end zone.
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers’ defense, as a whole, kept a goose egg on the board all night long.
“I’m proud of that group,” Carper said. “That’s one thing, coming into this year, that we wanted to focus on getting better at. The kids took that as a challenge. They felt like they were kind of disrespected with a couple of the comments that had been left on social media. They played with that on their sleeves. I’m proud of the effort they gave tonight.”
It took just over three minutes of game time for Chillicothe (1-0) to open the scoring.
The Cavaliers took a 7-0 lead at the 8:52 mark in the first quarter on a three-yard touchdown run from Ligon.
Later, with 11:24 to go in the second, Ligon scored from six yards out to make it 14-0.
He also had a 62-yard touchdown run wiped off the board, thanks to a penalty marker — a central theme of the first half.
In total, Chillicothe was nicked by 11 accepted penalties for 110 yards in the first two quarters.
“You have to just play through that. You have to play through the penalties and you have to play through the adversity,” Carper said. “We can’t control every penalty. But we can control the 15-yarders. So, if we worry about fixing what we can control, those things will get fixed.”
In the third, with Circleville (0-1) driving into the red zone, Ligon jumped in front of a pass at his own 26-yard line and outraced everybody else to the house, pushing the lead to 21-0.
His final score of the night came with 5:07 remaining in the quarter, when he scored from 58 yards out to make it a 28-0 tally.
“It was just about reading the defense well and my linemen in general, being great,” Ligon said. “They opened holes with me all night. It starts with them.”
The night’s final score came with 8:02 left in the fourth, in the form of a 34-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Tay Harris to freshman receiver Marshay McKinley.
“His ceiling is huge,” Carper said. “He’s just a freshman. The cool thing about Marshay is that he comes in with great athletic ability, but he also wants to learn. He says, ‘Yessir and no sir.’ He wants to work, he wants to get better and he wants that pressure. Not a lot of young kids want that.”
Chillicothe returns to action on Aug. 28, hosting Wheelersburg.
The Pirates, who were the Division V state runner-up last season, started their season with a 63-0 rout of Portsmouth on Friday.
“Discipline,” Carper said. “That’s it. Discipline. We have the kids to win that game. But we can’t do it if we don’t have discipline. We can’t have mental mistakes, we can’t have costly penalties. We just have to play our game, do what we’re best at, and stay disciplined.”
This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Ligon’s four touchdowns carry Chillicothe to season-opening win
Reporting by Derrick Webb, Chillicothe Gazette / Chillicothe Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Derrick Webb, Chillicothe Gazette | USA TODAY Network
