The Brentwood High School football team kept their undefeated season intact Friday night, defeating Gallatin 41-6 behind a stellar second-half running attack.
Brentwood (6-0, 2-0) asserted their dominance in the trenches on the Green Wave throughout the second half as coach Mark Pemberton called 27-consecutive run plays following halftime.
“I had every intention of not throwing it in the second half,” the coach said. “We ended up throwing the one for a touchdown because we got backed up. I’m pleased with the way we out-physicalled them in the second half.”
The Bruins scored on each of their four second-half drives - the first two on drives of 12 and 16 plays. Quarterback Aaron Maher put the Bruins up 20-6 with a 4-yard run with 6:38 in the third quarter before throwing a touchdown pass to Jack Maher with 7:28 in the fourth quarter. Anthony Caldwell had a 15-yard score less than two minutes later before Isaac Martinez capped Brentwood scoring with a 2-yard run with 3:13 remaining on the game clock.
Senior running back Ben Green did not find the end zone despite being a focus of the Bruin offense. He ended the game with 22 carries for 156 yards – 103 of which came in the contest’s final 24 minutes.
“We started rough with our running,” the senior said. “We didn’t get a good push off the ball. We decided to take it back to the basics and just run it on them.”
The Bruins finished the game with a combined 299 yards rushing from nine different players.
Brentwood struggled at times against Gallatin in the first half, settling for two first-quarter field goals from sophomore kicker Trace Halpern of 51 and 32 yards. Andy Schumpert caught a 53-yard touchdown pass from Austin Winfree on the last play of the first quarter to put the Bruins up 13-0 before turnovers slowed the home team.
Gallatin (2-4) scored their only touchdown of the night with 4:34 in the second quarter as Ti’ron Dalton recovered a Winfree fumble and returned it 45 yards for the score. A two-point conversion attempt was no good.
“Coach (Will) Hester told me I was messing up his scoring average,” Pemberton joked after the game. “That was probably a bad call on my part – putting us in that situation. I thought our kids responded well to it though.”
Gallatin struggled against the vaunted Brentwood defense all game, earning only four first downs and gaining a total of 67 yards.
The Bruins had shutouts in three of their five contests headed into Friday. They look to continue their perfect season next week, returning to District 11-AAA play against Centennial.
