by Zachary Harmuth
After beating the defending three-time AA D-II state champion Ensworth 36-10 Friday night, could the BA faithful have felt any further from the ugly three-game losing streak of early September?
After all, when your team beats the No. 1 ranked team in the state, No. 21 in country, the churning stomachs and migraines of losing by 5 combined points at Father Ryan and at MBA must seem very long ago indeed..
Can anyone absolutely prove that 23-0 shut out in Cincinnati actually occurred? Because the memory of that game flickers to mind fragmented and disjointed, more like an old dream than cold, clear history.
The BA team that fell to 2-3 by the end of September appeared rough cut and unpolished compared to the team that just poured a rotten-milk-and-burnt-hair smoothie all over the new-car smell of what was Ensworth’s undefeated season.
BA coach Cody White did warn in week 3, after cruising to 2-0 by a combined score of 81-14, that his team was a work in progress, pouring cold water on unrealistic expectations that might result from such a start. But after Friday night’s win, it looks like the work has resulted in progress.
The Tigers (8-1, 5-1 in AA D-II) looked little like a team on a 29-game winning streak, allowing Tyler Swafford (211 yards and 2 TDs on 19 of 29 passing) to pick their defense apart like pulled pork, and on offense totalled 227 yards, just 26 more than Swafford alone. And 119 ess than BA’s 346.
Both teams played poorly in the first quarter, combining for 4 punts, 2 fumbles a missed FG and a lone Tigers TD.
But BA (7-3, 4-2 in AA D-II) dominated the line, the clock and the line of scrimmage; a pattern that continued all night. BA led 14-10 at the break, but 6 Ensworth turnovers and lack of production caught up with them in the second half.
The game got out of hand for good for the Tigers with 9:58 in the third quarter when a zig-zaggin C.J. Sanders put BA up 21-10 with a 51-yard TD reception.
Sanders (8 catches for 100 yards) had scored on a 3-yard run earlier, near the middle of the second quarter, and put BA up 14-7. The score capped a 13 play, 90 yard drive, and fared better than BA’s game-opening 13 play, 46 yard drive that ended with a missed FG.
But the ability to execute such long drives put BA in control of the clock, and it made scoring almost secondary once they had the lead. All told, Ensworth ran 52 plays over 19 minutes while BA ran 70 over 29 minutes. The nearly 50 percent advantage shows how poorly Ensworth performed on offense.
Tiger quarterback TJ Settles (8 of 25 for 86 yards, 0 TDs and 4 INTs) threw Cameron Currin two INTs and Trent Taylor another, which he took to the Ensworth 2-yard line. Another BA defensive star, Derek Barnett (3 TFL and a sack) punched it in as a short-yardage pushing the lead to 23. After two third-quarter Daniel Rowe field goals had taken it to 27.
Ensworth eventually added a FG, and down 14-10 after two, was losing at half for the second week in a row after a 0-9 first half against Baylor last Friday, which they overcame by winning the second half 16-0.
Ensworth had not lost a regular season game since September 2011, and won 63 of its last 70 games going back to 2008. To express just how impressive that is I’ll put it another way: Since America elected Barack Obama, the first time, Ensworth has lost 6 times in 70 games.
Before Friday BA had not beaten them since 2008, and is 2-5 versus them going back to 2008, accounting for 2 of those 6 (along with 2 by MBA, and one each by Baylor and Oakland).
And the Eagles (7-3, 4-2 in AADII) did not just win, they honest-to-goodness beat the Tigers (8-1, 5-1 in AADII).
