By Matt Franklin
HICO — In a battle of two locally-rated single-A football teams, No. 9 Greenbrier West Cavaliers shut down No. 15 Midland Trail Patriots and their high octane and powerful running game, holding one of the area’s best running backs and leading rusher Anthony Grimmett to only 46 yards and one touchdown on 15 carries, en route to a 34-7 victory.
“Our defense did one heck of a job tonight,” West coach Lewis McClung said.
“Going into tonight we knew that Grimmett was their go-to guy. But we didn’t want to concentrate just on one guy, because they have a stable of backs but he was one of the guys that we definitely had to stop.”
While the West defense did their job of shutting down the Trail offense, the Cavs’ offense did the job on its side of the ball. They set the tone early, taking the opening kickoff that ended up with a 2-yard touchdown plunge by freshman quarterback Chase Fitzwater.
Running back David Thomas, who is usually the starting quarterback but was filling in for injured starter and leading rusher Brian Gray, lead the offensive attack in the first half rushing for 102 yards on 15 carries, including a 30-yard touchdown run in the second quarter that put the Cavaliers up to a 14-0 lead going into the half.
The Midland Trail offense wouldn’t get on the board until early in the third quarter, after being shut down for the first half. The Patriots were able to capitalize on a Fitzwater fumble at the Cavs own 17 with a Grimmett 1-yard touchdown run. From that point on it was all Greenbrier West
The West offense got back into the endzone with 48 seconds to go in the third quarter with a Terry Simmons 2-yard touchdown run, extending the lead to 21-7.
The Greenbrier West offensive line took over from that point, milking milked the clock behind powerful running, and even stronger blocking. The West offense got the clock down to 5:02 converting on three consecutive third downs but were forced to punt on a 4th and 4 from the 50. But Trail was called for a roughing the punter, giving the Cavalier offense another opportunity to take time off the clock, this time getting it down 3:20.
At that point, the game was put into the Cavalier defense’s hands, and they answered the call. O
“Overall we didn’t play well, they are a great team and they executed very well,” Midland Trail coach Joe Dean said. “We played close through the first three quarters, but we started turning the ball over, and against a great team like West its just impossible to do that and not expect the outcome. We fought hard, we just didn’t have the good execution and ball control that we needed for a win.”
The West offense was lead by Thomas, who had 102 yards before exiting with an ankle injury late in the second. Terry Simmons chipped in with 59 yards and one touchdown on 19 carries filling in for Thomas.
“We had a lot of injuries coming into tonight,” McClung said. “I’m very proud and surprised for that matter of how good of a job our guys did..”
The Trail offense was lead by Grimmett, and Dustin Nickell who had 21 yards on 7 carries, the Patriots offense was outgained by the Cavaliers 241-99, 230 of the Cavalier’s yards came on the ground.
Greenbrier West (6-2) will square off against No. 10 Fayetteville Friday.
GW 7 7 7 13 — 34
MT 0 0 7 0 — 7
1st Quarter
GW- 9:29 Fitzwater 2 yard touchdown run (PAT Good)
2nd Quarter
GW 10:30 Thomas 30 yard touchdown run (PAT Good)
3rd Quarter
MT Grimmett 1 yard touchdown run (PAT Good)
GW :48 Simmons 1 yard touchdown run (Pat Good)
4th Quarter
GW- Myles 25 yard fumble return for touchdown (PAT snap botched)
GW- Farrell 52 yard interception return for touchdown (PAT good)
RUSHING
GW- Thomas-15-102-1 Simmons 19-59-1 Fitzwater 7-6 King-25 Holland-4-38
MT- Grimmett 15-46-1 Nickell-7-21 Shrewsbury1-4 Syner 8-(-4)
PASSING
GW- Fitzwater-1-3-10
MT- Syner-1-5-7-0-1
RECEIVING
GW- King-1-10
MT- Nickell-1-7
TURNOVERS
GW- 2 FR- Myles INT-Farrell
MT- INT-Nickell FR-Shrewbury
