ROMNEY – The Preston High School football team opened its 2025 season on the road on Friday night against Hampshire High School at Rennells Field in Romney.
Penalties, a costly turnover, and some lapses in the secondary doomed the Knights against the Trojans, as they fell 40-20 to a well-prepared Hampshire team.
Slaton Manko led PHS with 140 yards on 23 carries, but he only completed 9 of his 24 passing attempts for 71 yards. Manko did connect with Kaleb Stone and Aidan Schmidl for touchdowns through the air but also gave up a pick-six on the opening drive of the contest.
Hampshire’s Roscoe Dean found the endzone three times on the ground on only eight attempts and 79 yards. The Trojans found most of their offensive success through the air with quarterback Landon Eversole, who completed 10 of his 14 passes for 203 yards and one touchdown to his receiver Andrew Loy.
“Defensively, it just wasn’t what we needed,” Preston head coach Mark Deep said. “We thought we had a good gameplan but we didn’t tackle. You get them in minus yards and that’s when you have to take advantage and then you give up a tackle. We had some penalties that hurt us and then couldn’t overcome them. We ran the ball pretty well but it all starts defensively.”
By the 11:47 mark of the second quarter, Preston trailed Hampshire 14-7, but the Trojans offense had only been on the field for 14 seconds.
That came after the Knights used nearly the entire 12 minutes of the opening quarter on the offensive side themselves.
Midway through the first, after driving to the redzone in the opening drive of the game, Manko’s pass was intercepted by Hampshire’s Sean King at the five and taken back for the opening score.
The Knights responded with a touchdown themselves as Manko found Schmidl for a four-yard score late in the first.
The Hampshire offense finally took the field with one tick of the first quarter left on the clock, but only needed 13 seconds into the second frame to find pay dirt once again, as Eversole connected with Loy for a 61-yard strike.
“We knew they wanted to get downfield with the ball, and they got us a few times on it,” Deep said.
After a three-and-out by the Knights, Hampshire scored again as Dean punched home from a yard away to extend the Trojans lead to 20-7.
Manko responded well in the next drive and led PHS to six as he found Kaleb Stone for an 11-yard catch, but Dean scored again from the goal line, and the Knights went scoreless in the third after the break.
Hampshire scored the only touchdown of the third as King ran in from five yards to give the hosts a 33-14 advantage.
Hunter Lewellen cut the lead to 33-20 with a one-yard touchdown of his own, but Dean added his third of the contest that proved to be the dagger in the fourth quarter.
“I like how we controlled the line of scrimmage offensively, but penalties hurt us,” Deep said. “But defensively we have to be better, and we have to do it quickly with our schedule not slowing down one bit.”
Preston will travel south for the next two weeks to visit North Marion and Fairmont Senior.
BOX SCORE
Preston 7 7 0 6 – 20
Hampshire 7 20 6 7 – 40
SCORING SUMMARY
HHS – King 97 INT (Knight PAT good)
PHS – Schmidl 4 pass/Manko (Taylor PAT good)
HHS – Loy 61 pass/Eversole (Knight PAT good)
HHS – Dean 1 run (PAT blocked)
PHS – Stone 11 pass/Manko (Taylor PAT good)
HHS – Dean 1 run (Knight PAT good)
HHS – King 5 run (PAT no good)
PHS – Lewellen 1 run (PAT blocked)
HHS – Dean 7 run (Knight PAT good)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Preston – Manko 23-140, Lewellen 7-49 TD, Kilkenny 5-29, Strawser 6-13, Stone 2-(-2). Hampshire – Dean 8-79 3TD, Eversole 6-39, King 4-9 TD, Blomquist 1-(-5)
PASSING: Preston – Manko 9-24 71 2TD INT. Hampshire – Eversole 10-14 203 TD.
RECEIVING: Preston – Jenkins 3-28, Hayes 2-23, Stone 3-16 TD, Schmidl 1-4 TD.
