Leesville Road High School Logo
Sep 14, 2008
Cary
Zach Gentry rushed for 153 yards and two touchdowns and Ryan Mangum scored on both offense and defense as Leesville Road crushed Green Hope 49-0.
The Pride ground attack tallied 339 yards and five different ball carriers found their way into the end zone. Running back Johnie Council turned in the game’s most electrifying play with a 65-yard touchdown run with less than two minutes remaining in the first half. The play was a backbreaker for Green Hope, which had managed to keep the Pride offense quiet for most of the second quarter. Council finished with 87 yards on six carries.
The Pride (4-0) created a turnover on Green Hope’s first possession and took just two plays, both runs by Gentry, to score from 40 yards out and grab a 7-0 lead. They followed it up with a 64-yard touchdown drive in just five plays that took only 1:31 off the clock. They executed a trick play for a two-point conversion when the holder tossed the ball blindly over his head to kicker Taylor Bucklin, who had faked the beginning of his kicking motion and broke toward the right sideline. Bucklin cradled the ball and walked into the end zone untouched.
Gentry said his team wasn’t looking past the winless Falcons (0-4).
“This game… for us was about maturity” he said. “We came out here to play our hardest and really bust it on every play. We were just here to play our best personally.”
Pride coach David Green was happy to get the win but didn’t feel his team showed enough focus.
“I don’t think we were as intense as we were last week,” Green said. “I thought last week we played a much better ball game. We had some nice performances, but I thought overall as a team we lacked some of the fire and intensity we had last week and we better get it back in a hurry.”
On both sides of the ball Green Hope had no answers. Including yards lost from quarterback sacks, the Falcons finished the game with minus-16 yards rushing.
They did gain 116 yards through the air but two costly interceptions killed their chances of ending the shutout. Quarterback Kameron Bryant completed 12 of 24 attempts but one of the balls he had picked off ended up in the arms of Ryan Mangum, who took it 66 yards the other way to make the score 42-0 late in the fourth quarter.
“I knew if (the receiver) caught it he was about to get tackled so I just played it” Mangum said.
Mangum also scored on a two-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
While the Pride didn’t need to throw the ball much, Leesville quarterback Jake Groeschen had a solid game, completing 7 of 9 passes for 95 yards. Just as importantly, he looked to have solid command of the offense and appeared comfortable in the pocket all night. He demonstrated nice touch on his throws and led his receivers well, particularly near the sidelines.
“He’s getting better every week” Green said. “He threw some nice balls, a couple balls that should have been touchdowns that we just didn’t catch. He made nice reads and threw the ball where it needed to be.”
While a 49-0 loss certainly stings, of greater concern for the Falcons coaching staff is the health of their squad. Green Hope sustained several injuries in the game and coach Steve Katz believes the outlook is not good.
“We’ve got a lot of guys out,” Katz said. “Hopefully we’ll get a few of them back. But most of our injuries unfortunately are long term. We lost three guys for sure for the season, maybe four or five. I think we played as hard as we could. We’ve just got to pull together, keep fighting and hopefully get some people back.”
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