Taylorville senior linebacker Jackie Cargie stripped the ball away and returned it to the end zone to put his team up 41-14 and secure a blowout 57-14 win over Charleston Friday night in Taylorville.

After a close 16 minutes of play that saw 84-yard and 67-yard touchdown runs by Trojan junior running back Treylin Couch, the Tornadoes started pulling away with two passing touchdowns.

One of those passes came from backup junior quarterback Cameron Smith on his first pass of the game, after junior Isaac Repscher left with an injury.

Smith threw the touchdown pass 53 yards to junior wide receiver Blake Ladage.

Repscher wouldn’t see the field again, but Taylorville’s offense didn’t slow down with Smith under center.

Like many conference matchups, this Apollo Conference one had a lot of back-and-forth banter, with more of it coming from the Tornadoes causing them to get three unsportsmanlike penalties to Charleston’s one.

“I thought our kids were classy, and that’s the first thing I told them when they came in,” Charleston head coach Brian Halsey said. “I said, nobody likes to get beat, but I appreciate them being classy and being the good kids they are.”

Halsey said other positives from the game were slight improvements in throwing the ball and in the secondary.

However, a big takeaway from this game for him is that he need to recruit more guys to the team for next season.

“I’ll take that full responsibility,” Halsey said. “I’ll get in, I’ll recruit and I’ll sell it. We got some kids out this year that have never played and they’ve become big contributors for us.”

Charleston will head back to Trojan Hill next Friday to face Mahomet-Seymore. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Bryce Parker can be reached at 581-2812 or at baparker2@eiu.edu.