Cory Chambers didn’t start his first season as the Junior Bulldogs’ head coach as he wanted, losing 41-14 to Bryant, but sometimes a defeat can be a good thing, and that may well be the case with Greenwood’s opening loss. The teams clashed last Thursday evening at Smith-Robinson Stadium, the first time the two schools have ever played in junior high.
The Bryant varsity team is ranked #1 in the state and even a cursory look at their junior high program helps explain why. They certainly passed the eye test. They were big, strong, and fast with 22 different starters, 11 on each side of the ball. They looked more like a high school team than a bunch of ninth graders. But the hometown Bulldogs kept the game close in the first half before a series of second half Greenwood turnovers allowed the visitors to get some separation.
Neither team scored in the opening eight minutes, but the second period saw five touchdowns, three for Bryant and two for Greenwood. Leading 21-14 at the half, a trio of pass interceptions led to three more Bryant scores in the second half while Greenwood remained scoreless, accounting for the 41-14 final score.
The job of new head coach Cory Chambers and his staff is to reframe the loss into something positive for his players, most of which have never dealt with a loss of such magnitude in their young careers. As eighth graders they went unbeaten and hoped they could compete with the much larger school. By comparison, Bryant has about 800 freshmen students while Greenwood has fewer than 300. That’s quite a difference, giving the Jr. Hornets a much larger pool of players and talent from which to choose.
Greenwood scheduled Bryant out of necessity because so few teams in the area are willing to play the Jr. Bulldogs in non-conference action. That’s the result of Greenwood being so good for so long and the same reason their only other non-conference game at the end of the regular season will be against Lake Hamilton. The eight contests in between Bryant and Lake Hamilton will be conference games, starting next Thursday at Alma.
A scoreless first quarter
Last Thursday’s action began with an earlier start than normal, allowing Bryant to get back home sooner on a school night. The 6:30 p.m. kickoff by the Hornets was an onside attempt that failed when Greenwood’s Coltyn Mourton smothered the ball at midfield. But the good field position was wasted when the Freshmen Dogs failed to get a first down on their initial offensive possession, punting the ball to the Bryant 24.
The visitors did make a first down, but only one before giving the pigskin back to Greenwood at the Bryant 39 after a failed fourth down try. With the clock running late in the opening period, the Jr. Dogs started their first scoring drive with five snaps before changing direction at the start of the second quarter. After a short loss, quarterback Bentley Benick completed a pair of short passes to receiver Myles Meeker while running back Parker Spencer carried twice for 12 yards.
From the Bryant 18 on the first snap of the second stanza, Renick’s pass into the end zone was dropped, but it didn’t matter because four plays later Spencer scored on a 10-yard run off the left side, breaking tackles along the way. Prior to the touchdown, Spencer carried twice for 12 yards after a penalty had pushed the Bulldogs back to the Bryant 22-yard-line. Kicker Leo Anaya added the extra point for a 7-0 Greenwood lead.
But it didn’t take long for the Hornets to tie the score, getting a long touchdown run on second down from their own 43. The play covered 57 yards down the visitor’s sideline and the extra point kick knotted the score at 7-7. But the scoring was just getting started in the second quarter with three more touchdowns to follow.
The first of those three came on Greenwood’s ensuing possession, starting from their own 49 after a good kick return by Myles Meeker of 24 yards. Three snaps later from the home 46, Bentley Renick connected over the middle to Meeker, who made the catch despite being well covered, advancing the ball to the Bryant 15-yard-line. After a penalty to the 20, Renick found Chase Bercher open over the middle at the 5-yard-line and in for the touchdown. The PAT made it 14-7.
The other two scores of the second quarter were by Bryant, giving them a 21-14 lead at the half. They tied the game in short order, marching 67 yards in just three plays, the last one a 27-yard scoring run. The kick tied the score at 14-all with time running down in the opening half. The Hornets then kicked off, giving Greenwood the ball at the home 20-yard-line. But after a pair of good running plays the drive died and Greenwood was forced to punt the ball away to the Bryant 27.
After a gain on first down to the 34, the Hornets connected on a pass over the middle to a wide-open receiver who just kept on going for the 66-yard touchdown play. The extra point kick was true and the visitors led 21-14 with 28 seconds left in the half. It was their first lead of the game, and they would not relinquish it in the second half.
Second half picks doom Bulldogs
The only scores in the second half were by the Hornets, who took advantage of three pass interceptions, turning two of them into touchdowns. But their first score of the second half came on a 69-yard touchdown pass over the middle, but the point after failed due to a bobbled snap. Leading 27-14, the Hornets then intercepted a Greenwood pass and returned it over 50 yards to the Greenwood 2-yard-line, from where they quickly scored on a quarterback keeper. The extra point made it 34-14.
The game’s final score came on an 85-yard touchdown pass after yet another defensive interception deep in Hornets’ territory. The ball was overthrown and the defender made a spectacular diving catch, ending Greenwood’s most promising possession of the second half. All three of the Bulldogs’ second half possessions ended with interceptions by the Hornets. When time expired in the fourth quarter the Hornets walked off with a 41-14 victory at Smith-Robinson Stadium, something to which few visiting teams can lay claim in recent years.
Post-game Comments
After the game, Head Coach Cory Chambers reflected on his first game and the performance of his players against a clearly superior Bryant squad, at least physically. “We moved the ball really well on them,” he said, reflecting on the first half. “Our two scoring drives we kind of punched it down their throat, hitting some outside zone (runs) down the field, and hit them on a couple of long passes on some long down and distance (plays), and ended up getting in the end zone.
“We just were allowing them too many big plays, and we can’t do that. There were a couple of big, long plays and some missed tackles,” he added regarding his team’s defensive play. Chambers agreed that the Hornets had a physical advantage over his Bulldogs, “And they had 11 on each side of the ball and we got a little tired in the second half. That’s when they kind of turned it on against us. We had some mental mistakes and we weren’t tackling. We weren’t wrapping up like we should.”
As for the three second half interceptions, Chambers said, “A couple of them weren’t great throws and not good decisions. But on one we had a receiver stop running the route and didn’t give us much effort. It could probably also go down as [bad] play calling too. We had long down and distances and needed some long plays, so we put the ball up and it didn’t work out our way.”
Asked what he told his team after the game, the new head coach said, “We’ve got a group of kids that hadn’t lost very many games, if any, in their career, and we’re going to find out now what they can do with adversity and how they’re going to react to losing a game. You could tell during the game they didn’t know how to act.”
In closing, the coach laid out his plan for the next few days of practice before the Alma game next Thursday. “We’ve got to clean up the tackling and make sure these guys know if they don’t play hard, they’re not going to be on the field. We had a couple plays where I felt like kids weren’t playing hard, and that is just unacceptable. We’ve got to watch the film tomorrow, correct the mistakes, and be ready to go on Monday.”