By Zachary Harmuth
Hosting Donelson Christian Academy in the semifinals of the DI-A playoffs on Friday night, BGA lost one of those games in which the teams match up so evenly that whomever wins seems almost arbitrary.
More like a function of the game clock than a measure of merit, skill or execution. When the music stops, as it were, there is only one chair.
All night, whenever one team scored, sooner or later but inevitably the other matched it.
BGA just had the dumb luck to score first, and got caught standing up when the music stopped and the clock read triple-zeros. A few more minutes and things would have gone the other way.
The final score ended up 27-20, with DCA scoring 7 points in the with 17 seconds left in the game.
For most of the fourth quarter BGA trailed 20-13, until with 3:38 left Ronald Cleveland tore off a 23-yard run for a touchdown that led to a 20-20 tie. Cleveland, the workhorse carrying the ball for BGA all year, finished with 61 rushing, and 81 total, yards plus that touchdown on ten touches.
The score capped a 6-play, 72-yard drive for the Wildcats; unfortunately DCA responded with a 10-play, 74-yard drive, which started with a little more than three minutes left in the game and effectively ended the game and BGA’s season.
The end of the game unfolded much like the end of the first half. BGA led by 7 points,136, after two Jarret Bristol field goals and a Zack Hardiman touchdown.
Then, with a little more than three minutes left in the first half, DCA got the ball, and went on a 7-play drive that ended with a Shannon Fayne touchdown and less than a minute in the quarter.
That score by Fayne took the game into halftime tied at 13. Hie would later score the winning touchdown for DCA, to end the game.
BGA quarterback Cole Grosvenor, finished with 153 yards passing, but his two interceptions were the only turnovers in the game.
Well, there will always be next year. And this was BGA’s first year in A Division I, so they faced many opponents for the first time this season. To have gone 7-3 after tonight, and advanced to the second round of the DI-A playoffs, the team has nothing to hang their heads about.
This loss just means the team will come back next year, hungrier, wiser and, hopefully, better than ever.
