Bruins' first-round playoff win gives home field advantage as long as winning continues
By Marcus Stone
mstone@williamsonherald.com
The Brentwood Bruins had little to no difficulty in the first round of the 6A playoffs, defeating Rossview 35-7 Friday night.
Brentwood dominated the Rossview defense early, scoring touchdowns on all four of their opening-half possessions.
“I thought we came out ready to play,” said Bruins coach Ron Crawford after the game. “We had a good week of practice. Obviously missing Jeremy (Coffey), we had some guys step up and do an outstanding job.”
Coffey, the team’s leading rusher this season, injured his shoulder against Franklin last week and was unable to play. Roman Mitchell stepped in for his teammate and didn’t miss a beat, scoring three first-half touchdowns.
“Roman did excellent,” Crawford said. “It’s awesome to see a kid like that have that kind of experience and do that for our football team.”
The senior came out of the game in the third quarter with his team ahead 35-0, having ran for 137 yards on 21 carries. Mitchell credited his success to the Rossview defense overrunning the play and his offensive line staying on their blocks.
A noticeable change between the first playoff game and last game of the regular season was the Bruins’ passing attack. It took the Bruins all of three plays Friday night to throw their first pass, whereas it took them three quarters to do so in last week’s mud-bowl of a regular season finale at Franklin.
Quarterback Clay Webber was on target with his favorite receiver Jordan Evans all night long, connecting on scoring plays of 29 and 35 yards. The duo’s second came on a back-shoulder pass that Evans caught over a defender and ran into the end zone.
“I was mainly trusting my receiver right there,” Webber said. “Just giving him a chance to make a play. Me and Jordan know each other really well and I can always trust on him making the big play.”
The Bruins’ undersized defense came up big in the game, holding their opponent scoreless until Rossview found the goal line on a 60-yard trick play with 47 seconds left in the game. Tyler Stuart caught a Drew Padgett pass then flipped the ball to Jayson Collier who ran down the sideline for the score.
Rossview was able to move the ball for most of the night but was never able to finish drives. The team reached Bruin territory four times, including one trip inside the red zone, but was unable to score.
“We’re what we are on defense,” Crawford said. “We’re pretty scrappy and we’ll find a way, but we’re pretty much bend but don’t break.”
With the win the Bruins advance to play an upset-minded Dickson County team that toppled No. 3 seed Hunters Lane in the opening round 28-7.
When asked about what he knew of next week’s challenger, Crawford joked that he knew where Dickson County is and that’s about it. He said he just got off the phone and was told they run a split-back veer offense and that is all he knew.
The Cougars beat Rossview in Week Two 28-14, out-rushing the Hawks by 184 yards.
The key to the match up will be containing Dickson County’s ground attack of Bo Brown and Devin Guthrie. Both players have over a hundred carries on the season and 10 touchdowns.
A low-scoring contest would be in the favor of Brentwood as Dickson is 0-4 in games that they have scored less than 20 points.
Brentwood now has home field locked up until the championship game thanks to Independence’s upset of No. 1 Arlington and Whitehaven’s defeat of top-seeded Germantown. The Bruins have the advantage over fellow No. 2 seed White Station in the event this game becomes a reality according to the TSSAA Web site. The site states that in odd-numbered years the top team in the bracket is the home team while in even years it is the bottom.
In order for that to take place, the Bruins will have to top either Franklin or Independence in the quarterfinals.
Posted on: 11/12/2009
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