Atmosphere should help Brookville, Amherst

By Ted Allen

Published: August 24, 2008

Brookville was able to rise to the challenge of beating Amherst, 24-21, on its home turf Friday night before a huge partisan crowd at Lancers Stadium.

“Amherst’s fans are terrific,” said Brookville coach Jeff Woody, being sure to avoid calling them hostile as he had regarding those at Richlands prior to the Bees’ loss in last season’s Group AA, Division 3, state semifinal. “Early in the game, and throughout the game, it was difficult to get plays into (quarterback) Logan (Thomas) and I think a couple times Logan wanted to audible and couldn’t do so because they were so loud, and that’s a testament to their fans. It’s a great place to play football.”

But three costly fumbles, one returned 70 yards by Zack McCray for a game-tying touchdown with 7.5 seconds left in the first half, and a game-ending interception by Thomas, who atoned for the two he threw, deflated the home team and its fans.

“Zack’s play with that little time in the half, we go into the locker room with new life, they go into the locker room thinking we’re beating this team and we’re beating ourselves,” Woody said.

Amherst first-year coach Cecil Phillips said the high-stakes, playoff-level intensity atmosphere should benefit both teams down the road.

“It’s great to be in this type of ballgame early in the year,” he said. “It’s Friday night football in the Seminole District and we knew it was going to be a tough, hard-fought contest.”

In a back-and-forth battle, which turned on mistakes and big plays, Phillips accepted the blame for the defeat.

“Coach Woody’s done a great job of getting his team prepared,” he said. “We didn’t take care of the things we needed to. I take full responsibility for that. Going into the game, we could not give up the big play, we had to execute on offense and protect the football and limit our penalties and limit the turnovers. Those are things we just didn’t do and those were the keys to success tonight.”

After converting two fourth-down plays on an eight-and-a-half-minute fourth-quarter drive, Lancers middle linebacker A.J. Parrish, filling in for starting wingbacks slowed by leg cramps, was stopped on a third.

“We had to substitute A.J. and he’s a load coming up through there,” Phillips said. “He’s an aggressive young man and we had all the faith in him, we had all the faith in our offensive linemen and we just came up short.”

Amherst finished three-for-six on fourth-down attempts on the night.

Anthony Rose, making his first start at quarterback after succeeding older brother Peter at the position, struggled in his debut, finishing 0-for-6 including the final interception to Thomas.

One play before intercepting Thomas and returning it to the Bees’ 30 late in the first half, Rose, a left-hander with great mobility, was sacked by McCray, who grabbed his jersey and threw him to the ground for an 11-yard loss back at Amherst’s 7-yard line.

Rose had to switch from the No. 1 jersey to No. 11 for the second half.

“His jersey got ripped all the way across on the play he got sacked,” Phillips said.

Amherst punter, Taylor Grubbs, got his team out of that hole with a 59-yard punt out of his end zone, which he lined over the head of Thomas, the lone return man.

After intercepting Thomas on the next play and returning it to the Bees’ 30, Rose fumbled on the last play of the first half, McCray’s 70-yard touchdown return.

“We were running a little bit of an option-style play where it was a read and it was just an exchange or communication problem,” Phillips said. “Those things happen.”

The Lancers’ 26-game winning streak came to a screeching halt with the narrow defeat, but Phillips expects his team to bounce back quickly.

“We’re going to regroup as a family and make sure we don’t have this feeling again,” he said. “We’ll rally, we’ll get back to work (today). It’s one bump in the road and that’s a test of our character right there. We’ll see how we respond.”