As the Easton football team ran off the field last Friday night at Parkland School District stadium, the Trojans and its staff were left stunned. The coaches stood motionless near their endzone trying to grasp what just had happened.

Ezra Gaines caught a 53-yard pass from Brad Wilkins to put Easton up 35-14 in the fourth quarter. The Red Rovers scored 28 unanswered points, and completely shut down Parkland offensively, on their way to a 35-28 Lehigh Valley Conference victory.

"We're going to have to check out our kids and make sure they're all in," said head coach Jim Morgans. "We need to make sure they're all in and playing for the full 48 minutes. Easton's a good football team, there's no question about that, but how did that just turn around?"

It was a tough loss for Parkland (0-2) to take, especially in their home opener and in a showdown of two of the top teams in the conference.

After finishing with 448 yards rushing a week ago, the Trojans could only muster up 107 yards against a stingy Easton front seven. Tim Baranek had a team high 73 yards rushing with a touchdown, and threw for 173 and two scores. Jarel Elder contributed 11 yards rushing, but returned a 17-yard interception for a touchdown in the first quarter.

Earlier in the week Morgans noted that the key to winning this game was going to be to contain the athletic running backs the Red Rovers lined up. That game plan turned out to be right.

Shane Simpson and Austin Brown seemed to have the ball in their hands on every Red Rovers offensive possession in the course of the ball game. Simpson racked up 176 total yards, and Brown accounted for 95 of the 227 rushing yards, and scored twice.

"They just play how they play," said Morgans. "They weren't lining up any differently then they were in the first half. We just didn't tackle very well, and they're special players so you can't let that happen."

After a 17-yard completion to Andrew Fuehrer put the Trojans up 14-7 heading into halftime, the wheels completely fell off.

Parkland moved the chains in its first second half drive before its offense stalled.

Easton (2-0) then drove 78 yards on the ensuing possession, and ran off 28 unanswered points.

Kareem Williams took a 22-yard run in for a score, and Baranek added a nine-yard touchdown run in the waning minutes of the contest.

Parkland will now look to get into the win column when it travels to Northampton this Friday night. Morgans knows it's too early in the season to panic, and still believes he has a winning team.

"I told the guys there's only one way to fix what's going on, and that's to win a football game," said Morgans. "Next week we play Northampton, and it's going to be a difficult game. They're well coached and they do a great job with some tough kids. If we have in our mind that it's just Northampton, we're going to lose another one."