In a battle of youth against youth, the upperclassmen of Butler County Magnet School ended up with the upper hand in a 54-0 rout of Resurrection Catholic Friday night.

“They were small like us, and they were also very young,” said head coach Shane Smothers. “As young as we are, we were still a little bit older than them.”

The first half belonged to one of BCMS’s seniors: Victor Marshall.

Marshall rattled off touchdown runs of 13 and 74 yards and an interception return for a 20-yard touchdown in the first five minutes of the game.

Late in the second quarter, a host of Panthers recovered a fumble in the endzone to make the score 26-0 at the half.

Marshall got in one more score on a 25-yard run in the third quarter before underclassmen Keon Binion and Devin Bonner took over.

Binion scored on a seven-yard run in the third quarter and Bonner had runs of four and eight yards in the second half.

Despite the quick start, Smothers wasn’t pleased with his team’s play in the first half.

“We had too many penalties, so I’m not pleased with that,” he said. “We wanted to get better and play well, but we went backwards in the first half. We had a talk at halftime and came out with more intensity in the second half.”

The Panthers ended the game with 11 penalties for 95 yards.

One issue BCMS also ran into was depth — ideally older players would step back and younger players would come into the game, but in the Panthers’ case, the young players were already on the field.

“We got to play everybody, and we’re still waiting to get some of our injured players back,” Smothers said.

Marshall ended the game with seven rushes for 200 yards, while Bonner had 74 yards and Binion rushed for 54.

The Panthers host Fruitdale next week in a key region matchup.