MURFREESBORO, Tenn.—Brentwood, Franklin, Page and Ravenwood all participated in Friday night’s Rutherford-Williamson football jamboree with varying degrees of success. Games consisted two 12-minute quarters. The event was held at Oakland High School; here’s how teams fared.
Strong passing game helps Brentwood wallop Riverdale
The names have changed, but the result was the same for Brentwood. Led by a host of players stepping into bigger roles, the Bruins smacked Riverdale, 35-0, in the evening’s most dominating performance.
Senior quarterbacks Dylan Stevens threw three touchdowns and sophomore Cade Granzow threw for one and ran for another. Scoring strikes went to four different receivers—Avery Williams, Carter McKechnie, Chayce Bishop and Garner Jones.
Kicker Tabor Miller added five extra points. McKechnie, Brentwood’s starting running back, added a 54-yard, non-scoring catch.
“Offensively… we feel like we’ve got really talented kids at the wide receiver and running back spots,” coach Ron Crawford said. “When you’ve got that many players, you want to get them touches. … We wanted to leave here with a good feeling.”
Brentwood’s defense struggled with the run early but settled down. The Bruins forced a pair of turnovers, including an interception by linebacker Xiere Howard off a tipped ball. Linebacker Sterling Ambrose also recorded a sack.
The Bruins started slowly, but Stokes heaved a beautiful throw down the left hash that Williams ran under and caught for an 85-yard touchdown with 5:42 left in the first quarter.
Just 45 seconds into the second quarter, Stevens, flushed towards the left sideline, found McKechnie for a 9-yard touchdown.
Granzow scored on a 4-yard keeper with 7:32 left. Then, Howard’s pick set up the play of the night.
Bishop got open down the left sideline towards the front end zone pylon. Granzow’s throw was supposed to go over his inside shoulder, but went outside instead. Bishop, son of former Titans’ All-Pro safety Blaine Bishop, adjusted and caught the ball in stride for a 32-yard score with 5:43 left.
Jones then took a short screen from Granzow and dashed 56 yards down the right sideline with 3:07 left.
Brentwood hosts Franklin in its opener next Friday.
Rushing scores help Franklin top Stewart’s Creek
Running backs Matt Gaca and Chase Crow accounted for touchdowns as Franklin topped Stewart’s Creek, 14-6.
Junior quarterback Josh Nichols had a solid night, with key passes to receiver Chancellor Bright and tight end Reagan Bolt that set up both runs.
“Right off the bat, we were really sloppy with our play,” Franklin coach Donnie Webb said. “The positive is, when you’re really sloppy in your play, you need a player to step up and make a play. Josh stood in there on fourth-and-26 and Chancellor made a play for us.”
Nichols hit Bright with the aforementioned throw, which came along the left side. That set up a 4-yard Gaca scoring run with 1:07 left in the first quarter.
Towards the end of the evening, Bolt got wide open near the left hash and Bright found him. He ran to the 1, setting up Crow’s score.
Page struggles to execute when it matters
The bad news for Page: its running game struggled, and it failed to scratch in a 14-0 loss to Siegel.
The good news: It’s clear that the Patriots have a pair of quality quarterbacks in Cade Walker and Taylor Bittner.
Page kept challenging Siegel downfield, with success, but just couldn’t finish.
“We had some shots offensively, that, if we connect on, we score,” Patriots coach Charles Rathbone said.
“We can throw the ball, we know we can throw the ball,” he continued later. “We’ve got to figure out a way to run the ball. Tonight, I bet [we had negative yardage] in running the ball.”
Walker had Page’s play of the night, a 54-yard throw—all in the air—to receiver Whitten Luker, which got the Patriots to the 8. But Page got backed up from there, then, missed a field goal.
Bittner had a 35-yard throw to Michael Burdick, and a 35-yard reception to Hayes Barnett. But interceptions snuffed out a pair of late drives.
Page is scheduled to open at home against Fariview in a week, but its new artificial surface hasn’t been completely installed. The game will be moved to Nolensville High if work isn’t completed in time.
Last-second field goal leads Oakland past Ravenwood
Oakland kicked a short field goal on the last play to score a 10-7 win over Ravenwood. Color Raptors coach Matt Daniels unconcerned.
With Oakland’s field in poor shape at the end of the night, due to three previous games and unexpected rain, he and Oakland’s Kevin Creasy agreed to play things safe and preserve star players with the regular season looming.
“We both kind of agreed to keep it vanilla,” Daniels said. “We don’t want to show our competition too much. … It was kind of a gentleman’s match tonight.”
Quarterback Brian Garcia had a nice night. His throw to Ross Johnston set up his own 2-yard scoring scramble with 7:39 left.
Dylan Stevens was referred to as Stokes for first Brentwood TD pass.
Also, the last TD pass to Garner was from Dylan, not Cade.