By: Nora Scott
Battle Ground Academy will travel to Hendersonville on Friday to take on Pope John Paul II. JPII has gone undefeated at home so far this year and BGA has yet to lose an away game, but one of those streaks will have to end on Friday.
JPII will be overjoyed to have an evenly matched game this week after Baylor, a top ten team in the state, defeated them 51-3. For BGA, on the other hand, this will be only their second game of the season in which they won’t be heavily favored to win.
Junior Cole Grovesner has taken the position of starting quarterback from senior Tucker Beathard for the past two weeks, and based on Grovesner’s performance he will probably stay in that first-string position for a while. He completed 10 of his 14 passing attempts for a total of 110 for two touchdowns through the air, but he also ran for two more. One of Beathard’s biggest values as quarterback was the threat he posed with his legs, so if Grovesner can maintain that threat, improve the passing game, and prevent interceptions as he did against Franklin-Simpson last week, he will start again against JPII.
The BGA Wildcats, a team that has turned the ball over as many as 6 times in a game this year, finished their game last week with zero turnovers. Holding on to the ball has been one of the keys to BGA finding success against evenly matched teams like JPII this year, so having zero turnovers is a huge step for them and they will have to come close to perfect again this week to win.
BGA did, however, allow another 97-yard kickoff return against Franklin-Simpson. The Wildcats have struggled with giving up big plays for easy points so far this year, and they can’t afford to keep making those kind of mistakes if they want to win big games this year.
Though JPII will pose more of a threat than most of the other teams they have played this year, a win on Friday is completely manageable for the Wildcats as long as they eliminate the mistakes that they have had the luxury of making against weaker teams all year. Kickoff is at 7 at JPII.
