Berkley hands Troy Athens its first loss to stay in OAA Blue race
The host Berkley Bears erased a 6-point halftime deficit and defeated the visiting Troy Athens Red Hawks 31-20 Friday night in a battle of Oakland Activities Association Blue contenders.
“They are a good team. They play hard. We made too many mistakes, and they’re a good team. When you make mistakes against a good team, you lose. And that’s what happened,” Athens head coach Billy Keenist Jr. said. “Our kids battled. We’ve got to get some things shored up and we’ll be fine.”
Trailing 20-14 at the half, the Bears forced a threeand-out on the Red Hawks’ opening possession of the second half. Barely one minute later, the Bears went ahead when Savod Daniels broke a 54-yard run on 3rd down and one, scampering into the end zone to give Berkley a lead they would never relinquish.
After being pushed around in the first half, the Bear defense made some halftime adjustments and did not allow any points in the second half to a Red Hawk offense that had scored touchdowns on all three first-half possessions.
“We changed up our coverage a little bit to put guys in a better position. We actually flipped our strong and weak side backers around a little bit to put them in a better position, and guys just wound up making some more tackles in the second half,” Bears head coach Sean Shields said.
Ryan Krause sparked the second effort, intercepting a pass in the third quarter to stop an Athens drive that had entered Berkley territory, then recovering a fumble in the fourth quarter to stop Athens’ next drive. Berkley converted both turnovers into points, stretching the lead to 31-20.
The Bears cranked up the running game, garnering 270 yards on the ground behind a strong performance from the offensive line of David Rolands, Isaac Dawkins, Christian Tubbs, Donovan Mckeague, and Sean McKenzie.
Savod Daniels led all rushers with 127 yards and accounted for all four Berkley touchdowns, three on the ground and the fourth on a 53-yard screen pass.
Evan Biber led the Red Hawk offense, racking up 266 yards and one touchdown passing. After Berkley scored on the drive’s opening game. Biber led the Red Hawks on backto-back touchdown drives. Andre Shelton capped the first drive with 15yard touchdown scamper around the left end, but the Red Hawks missed the extra point, leaving the score 7-6. Biber put Athens ahead on the next drive when he hit Trey Vincent for a 12yard touchdown to give Athens a 13-7 lead.
But while the Red Hawks continued to move the ball in the second half, the Berkley defense found ways to stop them once they got inside Bear territory, ending three straight drives by the Red Hawks inside the Berkley 40-yard line on an interception, a fumble, and a turnover on downs.
Both teams are now 4-1 overall and in the OAA Blue.
Troy Athens returns home to face unbeaten Bloomfield Hills in the Red Hawks’ homecoming game.
“We’ve got to learn from it and move on. We’re 4-1. We’ll be fine,” Keenist Jr. said. “We’ve just got to shake this off.”
Berkley hosts Avondale next week. Both games are also OAA Blue match ups.
“It was a great team win,” Shields said. “We slipped the first week (in a loss to Bloomfield Hills) but our goals are still ahead of us to win the league title. We’ve just got to keep winning out.”