By TIM HYDEN, CJ Correspondent
Commonwealth Journal
Somerset —
The Somerset Briar Jumpers rode a strong defense and the arm of Erik Manning to a hard earned 23-7 win over the Southwestern Warriors Friday night in Game 1 of the Ray Correll Bowl held at Somerset’s Clark Field.
The teams came into the game looking to find out how good they were after being on different ends of lopsided matchups in Week 1. The size and strength of Southwestern were expected to take advantage of the smaller Briar Jumpers, and early in the game that seemed to be unfolding.
Southwestern opened like gangbusters when quarterback Zack Turpin faked a dive into the middle of the line and took it on a keeper around the left end. There wasn’t a Briar Jumper in sight as Turpin sprinted down the sidelines for a possible touchdown. Taylor Sears, however, caught up with him and dragged him down at the SHS 19. Southwestern then started the smash-mouth attack that everyone expected Head Coach Dale Anderson’s troops to employ against the undersized Somerset defense. Three straight ahead runs gave the Warriors first and goal at the eight. It looked, however, that Somerset’s defense would stiffen and thwart the scoring opportunity. A tackle in the backfield by Somerset sophomore Trey Slaughter and an incomplete pass left the warriors with 4th-and-goal from the 7. Anderson rolled the dice and went for six. Turpin pitched it to junior tailback Dustin Powell coming around the right end and he took to it paydirt for the opening volley in this cross-county war. Logan Starnes tacked on the extra point to make it 7-0 Southwestern.
Now it was time to see if Somerset could answer the challenge. Or was it? Anderson pulled a rabbit out of his hat by trying an on-side kick in the first quarter, and after being batted around on the ground, the ball once again belonged to Southwestern at the Somerset 39. Cody Mote took it six yards on first down. But it was Slaughter again who rose up to be a momentum killer, by bringing Powell down in the backfield once again. After a third down pass fell incomplete, the Warriors were compelled to go for it on fourth down again. This time they stopped Devin Griffith two yards shy of a first down, and the Somerset defense had averted an early disaster.
After waiting the first 17 plays of the game, the Somerset offense finally got their chance to answer. But much as the other two phases of their team, defense and special teams, opened poorly, the Jumper offense followed suit. The defense gave up a 46-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. The kick return team failed to cover an on-side kick that should have belonged to Somerset. And on the first possession of the game, someone in the passing game blew a read assignment, because Manning’s pass was nowhere near his receivers, and Warrior linebacker Alan Williams picked it off. Southwestern was in Somerset territory for the third time in the quarter, at the 46.
But this possession went just like the Warriors’ previous one. A big stop by Slaughter on 2nd down, an incomplete pass on 3rd down, and a stop on fourth for the turnover on downs. Derrick Jackson broke through the line on the 4th and 4 and tackled Mote for a loss. Slaughter and Jackson seemed to be keeping the Briar Jumpers in the game with their defensive heroics.
“I don’t like to single out players, but Trey Slaughter and Derrick Jackson made some very big plays for us tonight,” said Somerset Head Coach Rob Lucas. “I expect a lot from our defense, and they’re not as good yet as I want them to be, but they really saved our bacon tonight.”
Somerset took over on their own 41, and this time they were able to answer, and quickly. Manning hit senior Zack Bastin with a pass over the middle, and after a few open field moves Bastin was streaking toward the end zone. The Warrior defense knocked him out at the one-yard line, and three plays later Manning finally squeezed into the end zone against that mammoth defensive line. The extra point careened off the left goal post, however, and Somerset still trailed 7-6.
The rest of the first half was a trade off. The two teams punted to each other in the next four possessions, with the only highlight being a huge 47-yard completion from Soutwestern’s Turpin to Alan Williams. But Somerset’s defense again refused to break, and Logan Starnes punted, pinning Somerset inside their own 10.
After another Alex Lange punt Southwestern got the ball near mid-field, and ran it down the Jumpers throats, gashing the Jumpers for 27 yards in three plays, forcing Lucas to call a timeout to regroup and stop the bleeding. It worked, because Somerset recovered a fumble on the next play and took over at their own 45. But the trading possessions continued. After a 19-yard pass to Corey Jones, a 15-yard penalty, and a 16-yard Manning run, the quarterback hit J. P. Henderlight on a pass that took him down to the six. But the ball popped out as Henderlight struggled for extra yardage, and Somerset had traded the ball back once again.
When the first half ended, the questions about how good these two teams would be were still unanswered. Southwestern had slightly outgained Somerset in the half, 158-144, and led by a missed extra point.
“I’m proud of the way our defense played tonight,” said Anderson. “And I thought our offense played pretty well in the first half. I thought we controlled the action pretty well and put ourselves in position to make something happen. We just needed to finish those drives with points.”
Lucas was understandably frustrated at the break, after turning the ball over inside the 10 right before halftime.
“The one sustained drive we managed to get in the first half ended with that fumble,” said Lucas. “The fumbles tonight were driving me crazy. We’re going to look at them on film and see what happened, but you can rest assured that the issue of fumbling will be addressed at practice on Monday.”
One person who had been noticeably absent from the action in the first half was star receiver Storm Wilson for Somerset. He had only one carry on a reverse for a loss of three yards when they came back out of the locker rooms. That must have been a topic of discussion among the Somerset staff at the half.
After another on-side kick attempt from Starnes went out of bounds, Manning dropped back on first down and hit Wilson with a 56-yard TD on the first play from scrimmage. Somerset now had their first lead 13-7.
“That deep ball to Wilson to start the half really hurt us,” said Anderson. “They made some good adjustments against us at half-time and hit us with some quick ones that got us in a hole.”
Southwestern had no answer in the second half offensively. In their first two drives they only picked up one first down, on a Somerset penalty. Somerset, however, was starting to get things rolling. With 3:52 left to go in the 3rd Quarter, Manning hooked up with senior receiver Corey Jones for a 29-yard score which pushed the lead to 20-7. And things continued to go wrong for the Warriors. On the first play of the ensuing drive, Derrick Jackson broke through the line and hit Turpin just as he was pitching the ball to the back. The ball landed on the turf and Manning fell on it for the turnover that could help the Briar Jumpers, with momentum on their side, put the game out of reach. But once again, Somerset fumbled it right back to Southwestern, after driving it down to the Warrior 7-yard line. Zach Fowler recovered the fumble for Southwestern. The powerful senior also recorded two and a half sacks and was named the Defensive Player of the Game.
Somerset had a chance to put it out of reach with that possession. But they instead relied on their defense, which continued to thwart the Warrior power attack with speed and aggressiveness at the line of scrimmage. Southwestern had three more possessions in the game, but could manage only 15 yards of total offense on those drives.
“I think that the biggest improvement our team needs to make right now is on the offensive line,” said Anderson. “That’s such a big part of the game of football, and it’s a part of the game we rely on heavily. We have to get better on the line if we want to compete against the teams on our schedule.
“Turnovers were also huge for us. We just couldn’t get any momentum in the second half. Starnes had a good return for us in the third quarter, and we turn around and fumble it back on the next play. We were able to control the ball in the first half and keep their offense off the field. But in the second half we couldn’t get it done.”
Somerset would add one more score, and reveal another weapon that can might help them pull out a win down the road. With just over nine minutes left in the game senior kicker Colby Hall came in to boot a 30-yard field goal to up the Jumpers lead to 23-7. And that’s where the scoring ended. Southwestern couldn’t mount anymore threats, and Somerset ran out as much of the clock as they could as the game wound down.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the game was the performance of the Briar Jumpers in the second half. While conventional wisdom would say that a 5A school noted for size and strength should wear down a 3A school noted for skill and quickness, especially in the second half, the spectators at Clark Field saw the opposite happen. After a first half that was nearly dead even statistically, Somerset dominated the action in the second half. Not only did the Briar Jumpers outscore Southwestern 17-0 after the break, they out-gained them 246-20.
“I think the key was that we just made big plays,” said Lucas. “And we’ve tried to make sure that we’re in really good condition late in games. We make a point to try to keep as few players from playing both ways as we can afford to, and sometimes that can give us some fresh legs when normally we’d be wearing down.
“I was also impressed with the way our offensive line played tonight. Southwestern has some real studs on that defensive line, and you can’t keep them from making great plays. But overall I was really pleased with the effort those young men on our offensive line gave us tonight.”
The offensive star of the night, though, was Erik Manning. The senior signal caller passed for 313 yards and 2 TDs, while rushing for 50 yards and another score in leading Somerset to the victory. Manning was named the Offensive Player of the Game. He also stood out on defense and recovered a huge fumble in the second half.
So now we have a clearer idea of where these two teams stand. Somerset looks to once again be a legitimate contender on the Class 3A scene, while Southwestern looks to be a solid team that has to find a way to score some points. For Somerset, it also marks the second straight year with a win in the Ray Correll Bowl, and with the way the level of play has improved in the county, that’s quite an achievement.
SW 7 0 0 0 = 7
SHS 6 0 14 3 = 23
SW—Powell 7 run (Starnes PAT)
SHS—E.Manning 1 run (kick failed)
SHS—E. Manning 56 pass to Wilson (Hall PAT)
SHS—E. Manning 29 pass to C. Jones (Hall PAT)
SHS—C. Hall 30-yd FG
Ist Downs—SW 8, SHS 14
Rushing—SW 38-138 (3.6 avg), SHS 29-116 (4.0 avg)
Passing—SW 3-10-63, SHS 14-22-313
Total offense—SW 178, SHS 390
Turnovers—SW 2, SHS 3
Penalties—SW 4-50, SHS 5-56
Punts—SW 7-30.7, SHS 3-35.7
Sacks/yds—SW 3-20, SHS 3-30
Rushing—SW, Turpin 7-58, Mote 11-38, Kirk 6-26, Powell 13-12 TD, Griffith 1-4. SHS, E. Manning 13-50 TD, D. Jackson 8-40, A. Lange 3-23, Bastin 4-6, Wilson 1- -3.
Passing—SW, Turpin 3-10 63. SHS, E. Manning 14-22 313 2TD, INT.
Receiving—SW, Williams 2-57, Mote 1-6. SHS, Wilson 4-96 TD, Henderlight 3-62, Bastin 2-66, C. Jones 2-43 TD, D. Jackson 2-19, Sears 1-15.
Sacks—SW 3 (Fowler 2.5, Lewis 0.5), SHS 3 (Stringer 1.5, D. Jackson 1, Tr. Slaughter 0.5)
