A defensive slugfest turned into a one-sided second half in the annual Battle for the Blacktop game between Milledgeville and Polo.

After the Marcos scored on the first drive of the second half, the Missiles scored three unanswered touchdowns after a fourth-down stop early in the fourth quarter to pull away for a 28-6 victory Friday night in Polo.

Milledgeville (4-0) used big plays to reach the end zone. Kyson Francis threw scoring strikes of 33 and 49 to Karter Livengood, and 18 yards to Spencer Nye. Evan Schenck added a 42-yard touchdown run with 1:52 to play, breaking several tackles after he looked to be stopped about five yards downfield.

“The first half started off rough; I missed some wide-open targets. In the second half, I got comfortable and started throwing the ball better,” said Francis, who finished 7-for-14 passing for 161 yards and an interception. “My receivers run great routes, and I can always trust them to get open.”

Polo (3-1) looked like it had seized the momentum to start the second half. Mercer Mumford returned the kickoff 26 yards to the Missiles’ 29-yard line, then capped an eight-play drive with a 1-yard TD run with 7:49 left in the third quarter.

The Marcos then forced a three-and-out and drove 40 yards in 10 plays, but JT Stephenson’s fourth-down completion to Mumford came up 1 yard shy of the first down, and the Missiles took over.

Francis capped a 13-play, 63-yard drive with the 18-yard TD pass to Nye on fourth-and-8 to make it 16-6 with 5:48 left in the game. It was the second scoring pass on fourth down; the Missiles converted on fourth-and-22 with the 33-yard TD pass late in the first quarter for an 8-0 lead.

“That fourth-down stop was huge,” Francis said. “We can really keep our composure, and that’s a big part of our team. We never get nervous in those big situations.”

After increasing the lead to 10, Nye recovered his own onside kick, and the next play was the 49-yard bomb to Livengood to push the lead to 22-8 just 13 seconds later.

“I have a lot of confidence in our team, and love it when our coaches call plays like that,” Nye said. “We go over these scenarios in practice, and I’m glad to be a Missile and play for these coaches.”

Polo was forced to its passing game, and Schenck intercepted a third-down pass on the next series before the Missiles forced a punt on the one after that. Schenck then broke off his 42-yard scoring run to put away the win for good.

Nye had three catches for 67 yards to go with 38 yards on 14 rushes, Livengood had two catches for 82 yards, and Schenck finished with five rushes for 58 yards. The Missiles outgained Polo 285-148 on two fewer offensive plays.

“We have a very small line, but I feel like we have the grit and want to move the line, push the ball. We have two 160-pounders and a 210-pounder up front, but we still manage to get it done,” Nye said. “Polo has excellent coaches, and we knew they were going to come out and play hard and stop us. We just found what worked and hit it hard.”

Mumford led the Marcos with 16 carries for 53 yards and five catches for 78 yards, and Stephenson finished 7-for-19 passing for 89 yards and a pair of picks. Polo had just two first downs and 29 total yards at halftime before its two third-quarter drives started to swing the momentum.

“We were playing well defensively, we just struggled all night offensively. I thought we played great for three quarters, then they just wore us out in the fourth quarter,” Polo coach Ted Alston said. “We had to try to do some things we really didn’t want to have to do and gave the ball back to them way too quickly, and they just kind of rolled from there.

“You kind of hate to see that happen, because we did play a great game and the score doesn’t indicate that. But we’ve just got to learn from what we did wrong and hope we can make improvements.”