TROJAN TURNAROUND: Gordon Lee rallies to win at LFO
Gordon Lee rallies to win at LFO
For a little more than 15 minutes on Friday night, everything seem to be going the way of the LFO Warriors.
Playing at home for the first time this season, they scored on two of their first three possessions, forced and recovered two fumbles on defense and flipped the field on a 48yard punt which they downed inside the 5-yard line.
But leading 15-0 and seemingly with all the momentum on their side, the visiting Gordon Lee Trojans simply took it away from them and never let it go.
The Navy-and-White would get on the board in the final minute of the first half before scoring on their first three possessions of the second half as four unanswered touchdowns gave Gordon Lee a 29-15 victory and a 2-0 start to the season.
After rushing for nearly 400 yards in last week’s season-opener against Dade County, the Trojans picked up 280 yards on the ground Friday night, but 191 came in the second half as they clicked off 7.3 yards per carry on 26 second-half attempts.
Gordon Lee head coach Josh Groce called his team’s “flat” start a mixture of what LFO was doing right and what his team was doing wrong.
“Tip your hat to (LFO). They were up 15-0 because they’re a good ball team,” he began. “It wasn’t just things we were doing wrong as much as it was they were executing well and we weren’t. They got after us up front and we were sort of sitting back and not attacking.
“We weren’t executing and we weren’t doing stuff we had worked
on all week, but we finally settled down and started doing the stuff we had prepared for.”
LFO (0-2) opened the night with 10 play, 72-yard drive that cumulated in a 4-yard keeper by quarterback Malachi Powell. Then, in the opening minute of the second quarter, Powell connected with Will Carroll on a nice 33yard pass play down to the 1 and fullback Benji Valdes bulled his way across the goal line on the next play. A conversion would stake the Warriors to a 15-0 lead with 10:26 to go in the half.
The Red-and-White got another gift just two plays later as Jevonnie Womble pounced on a loose ball and the hosts took over at the Gordon Lee 29-yard line, looking to deliver an early knockout blow.
However, the drive would come to a screeching halt when the Warriors fumbled it away at the Trojans’ 4-yard line, giving the visitors the ball. A 12-play, 95yard drive, aided by three very costly 15-yard penalties on LFO, would follow as Gordon Lee finally got on the board.
Facing second-and-10 from the LFO 21, quarterback Blake Groce lofted a pass to the endzone as Jacob Neal made a great over-the-shoulder, fingertip catch in front of a defender before stutter-stepping to get his feet inbound. A Montgomery Kephart extra point would pull the Trojans to within eight points of the lead at halftime.
Groce called the score a momentum-builder.
“(Jacob) is a great ballplayer and that was a great ball,” he said. “We had to find some kind of momentum and that was it. We finally broke the plane (of the goal) and did something right.”
Gordon Lee kept the pressure on as the third quarter began. An 11-play, 80-yard, smash-mouth drive, with all but 12 yards coming on the ground, took nearly five minutes off the clock and ended with Groce sneaking in from a yard out with 7:07 to play in the third quarter. He then found Cade Peterson for a conversion pass that tied the game.
The snowball kept rolling as the Trojans stuffed LFO’s fake punt attempt a yard short at the Warriors 30-yard line and Peterson would cap a quick, five-play drive with a 5-yard touchdown run, giving the Trojans their first lead of the game, 22-15, with 2:20 left in the third.
Three plays later, Peterson jumped in front of a Powell pass at the LFO 37-yard line and returned it 28 yards to help set up Cody Thomas’ 2-yard scoring run. Kephart’s third and final PAT of the night would cap the scoring with 11:11 left in the game.
LFO would go on one final drive, taking the ball from its own 34 all the way down to the Gordon Lee 3, assisted by a roughing-the-kicker call on a blocked punt attempt. However, a 5-yard false start penalty and a swarming Trojan defense pushed the ball back to the 15 where the drive ultimately ended with 3:35 to play.
Bo Rhudy, who carried just one time for three yards in the first half, finished with 10 carries and 109 yards, putting him over the century mark for the second straight game. Peterson finished with 87 yards on 12 carries. Thomas had 44 yards on 11 attempts and Brody Cobb added 36 tough yards on six carries, while Groce was 2 of 3 in the air for 33 yards, both to Neal.
Logan Ball and Jackson Moore had sacks for the Trojans, while Penn Askew was in on a team-high nine tackles, eight of them solo.
The Trojans limited LFO to 163 total yards, 130 coming on the ground. The Warriors had just 43 yards on 18 carries in the second half with 25 of those yards coming on just one run by Chase Rizzo.
Powell was LFO’s leading rusher with 48 yards on nine attempts and was 1 of 2 passing for 33 yards. Rizzo had five carries for 35 yards, while Womble and Valdes each had 20 yards on a combined 19 carries. Blake Thornburg also recovered a fumble for LFO.
“We didn’t make a whole lot of adjustments (at halftime),” Groce added. “We just settled our kids down and our defense finally showed up. I was wondering where they were and they finally came out and played. We were getting mashed up front (early in the game) and you have to tip your hat to what LFO was doing. They were exploding off the ball and wearing us out.
“The biggest thing is, when you’re playing a team that runs the veer like Coach (Bo) Campbell does, they’re coming out of a four-point stance and if you’re high, you’re going to get driven (back). We tried to tell our guys that all week and we finally started playing lower, which helped us, obviously.”
Gordon Lee will host Walker County rival LaFayette this Friday night, while LFO will enjoy an open date before they travel to LaFayette to open the Region 6-AAA portion of its schedule against the Ramblers on Sept. 25.