Trojans tame Lions
It’s a long time until the calendar flips to spring sports season. There isn’t even a track around the field at Lions Stadium. But that didn’t stop Christian Heritage from hosting a track meet with Gordon Lee Friday night.
The teams traded big play for big play, but over the second half, rounding the final lap, Gordon Lee was able to pull away from the Lions for a 49-26 victory. It was a game in which Gordon Lee racked up 510 yards of offense to Christian Heritage’s 357.
“I was proud of our kids,” Gordon Lee coach Greg Ellis said. “We came out and got the big lead. We’ve done this before, let them catch up. We came in at halftime, regrouped, figured some things out and I’m very proud of our kids. (Christian Heritage) has a great offensive scheme and it took us a while to figure out how to stop what they were doing.”
For Christian Heritage, it was the same story as the past two weeks where Lions were stuck in close games at halftime, only to fade coming down the home stretch.
If Friday’s game was a track meet, Gordon Lee’s Drew Cobb would’ve reached the top of the podium sev- eral times. He proved to be near impossible to catch from behind and equally as difficult to tackle. The Trojan senior came into Friday averaging over 200 yards a game and again topped the mark against the Lions, finishing with 238 yards on 34 carries with four touchdowns. He also caught two passes for 43 yards and a score.
“We knew coming in that he was one of the top guys in the state,” Lions' head coach Jay Poag said. “You got to stop him to have a shot. You’re trying to match score for score, and score for score, it’s just hard to do that when you can’t stop him or tackle him.”
But when asked about Cobb’s big night, Ellis instead turned the attention toward the other member of the Trojan backfield relay tandem.
“Our other one, (Braden Jarvis) is not bad either,” the veteran Gordon Lee mentor said.
Jarvis complimented Cobb’s big night with 125 yards rushing of his own, and caught a 28yard touchdown pass.
“They’re both pretty good,” Ellis said of the duo. “The best thing about Jarvis is he’s a junior. But they’re both competitors and they love to compete. I’m proud to have them.”
Senior Brandon Poag completed 19 of 36 passes for 317 yards and three touchdowns for the Lions, adding a fourth one on the ground.
Christian Heritage (0-4, 0-1) scored first, recovering a Cobb fumble and driving 42 yards in seven plays before Poag connected with 6-foot-7 junior Christian Koneman for the first score of the night. Koneman caught four passes on the night for 134 yards and the touchdown that gave the Lions an early 6-0 lead.
But Cobb took over after that.
The senior caught a 28-yard touchdown pass and followed it with scoring runs of 13 and 38 yards all before the end of the opening quarter, a quarter in which he ran for 136 yards.
The Lions, though, refused to roll over. After the Trojans went up 21-6, Poag hit Koneman on a 58-yard pitch-andcatch deep into Trojan territory. Two plays later, Poag scampered across the goal line from two yards out.
The Lions got even closer later in the quarter. Poag connected with Cal Paige who outran the defense for an 80-yard touchdown reception and Heath Hardaway’s extra point had the Lions within one at 21-20.
But Gordon Lee came back with one more score before halftime as quarter- back Austin Thompson hit Jarvis, who dove into the corner of the end zone for a 28-yard touchdown and the Trojans took a 28-20 lead into the break.
“It was big,” Ellis said of the score before the half. “We had the momentum when we were going in and that’s what we built off of in the locker room to come back out. Then we came out and did it. Our kids battled, it was tough, they played a pretty physical game.”
Gordon Lee (4-1, 1-1) stretched the lead early in the third quarter when Cobb burst into the end zone from two yards out. The Lions countered with Poag hitting Wesley Hagan for a 7-yard score, but the extra point was blocked keeping it a two-possession game, and Cobb soon followed with his fifth touchdown of the night.
Jarvis later put the exclamation point on the game with a 60-yard interception return for a TD.
Ellis said his team was able to change its defensive alignment to stop the Lion passing attack. It held Poag to only 63 yards passing in the second half after allowing 254 in the first.
“We went to a 4-4 and got out of the 3stack,” Ellis said. “We were figuring out what they were trying to do. We made the adjustments and it worked out.”
The Trojans will host Bowdon next Friday night, while the Lions will make the drive to Trion as subregion play continues.