TWINSBURG, Ohio – Hudson football players knew what was on the schedule for next week. But first, they had to take care of business on Friday night.
They did just that with a 35-0 road win over Twinsburg in a Suburban League National matchup.
Hudson (5-1 overall, 3-0 in conference) led 21-0 late in the first half before using special teams to effectively put the game away.
Twinsburg (4-2, 1-2) had a 20-play drive end in zero points after a bad snap from the 1-yard-line. It resulted in a 19-yard loss and then a field goal attempt with two seconds remaining in the half that was blocked by Hudson’s Nathan Judy, who also got the tackle on the bad snap.
“We just had the one more play mentality,” Judy said. “It doesn’t matter what happens this play, we just have to get it done. Then on the next play, they can make a mistake capitalize off that’s exactly happened, and then our kick block team played it perfectly and let me right through.”
Then to open the second half, Brennan Funyak caught the kickoff and returned it 83 yards up the right sideline for a touchdown to make it 28-0.
“When I got the ball, I just saw there was a huge hole,” Funyak said. “It was incredible blocking. I have to give it to other 10 guys in the field. They led the way for me, and I couldn’t have done that without them for sure.”
It was his second touchdown of the game after scoring on a 34-yard score in the first quarter when he took the handoff from Hayden Lipinski and ran to the left, looking like he was going to be forced out of bounds. But the senior running back reversed field and outraced several Twinsburg defenders to the right corner of the end zone. Funyak led the Explorers with 81 yards rushing on nine carries.
“I kept looking back and it was just a foot race to the corner,” Funyak said. “I had to turn on the burners. It was a wild play.”
Judy scored the first touchdown of the game on Hudson’s initial possession, catching a 17-yard pass from Lipinski after Anthony Paolucci had returned a punt 34 yards to the Twinsburg 24.
The Explorers also got a pair of touchdown runs from Christopher Horner, who scored from 30 yards in the second quarter and 20 yards in the third quarter. The second touchdown of the game for Horner put the game into a running clock with 4:47 left in the third quarter.
The Explorers, No. 14 in the cleveland.com Top 25, can now start to look ahead to next week, as they host No. 8 Wadsworth for the top spot in the Suburban League National. The Grizzlies moved to 6-0, 3-0 with a 49-12 win over Brecksville-Broadview Heights on Friday.
But the Explorers were completely focused on Friday night.
“We’re trying to focus on us,” Hudson head coach Jeff Gough said. “You have to bring your ‘A’ game every week, that’s the main thing. It’s just staying focused on one practice at a time, one game at a time. It’s not Twinsburg week, it’s week six, it’s not Wadsworth week, it’s week seven. It’s no disrespect to the program, but we just have to stay focused on us.”
The players have bought into their coach’s mentality.
“We can’t think about (next week) too much,” Judy said. “All season we’ve been a one week at a time team. We just have to worry about us and focus on our team.”