Well, summers over. The sounds of Friday Night Football filled the air with the official start of high school fall 2023/24 sports programs across the region and the Brookings-Harbor Bruin football program was on the road challenging the Coquille Red Devils last evening, in Coquille.
Head Coach Shaun Bavaro and his Bruin varsity football program will start their season with three road games starting in Coquille, then Lakeport next Saturday, and then traveling to Medford to challenge Cascade Christian before their first homegame, hosting the Sutherlin Bulldogs later in the month.
However, the Red Devils were in front of the Bruins Friday night in Coquille, and after deferring the kick-off after winning the coin toss, coach Bavaro put his Bruin defense on notice first, to stop a powerful offense and set the tone, and they did not disappoint.
The Coquille offense took the kick and drove down to the Bruin 12 yard line before the Bruin defense dug in their cleats and turned them away. An injury to a Coquille running back would cause an extensive delay, stopping the the game for approximately half an hour before teams would resume play early in the first quarter.
With just over three minutes left in the first period, the Red Devils would control the line of scrimmage, freeing up a powerful running game and drive 45 yards to score the first touchdown of the game to take a 0-7 lead. After failing to gain a first down on their next possession, the Bruins would punt and Coquille would take control of the ball on the Bruins forty-nine yard line before putting together another punishing run attack and putting the ball in the endzone, giving the Red Devils a 0-13 lead.
After receiving the kick-off, the Bruins offense came out on the field and lined up in their own 45 yard line. The ball was snapped to senior captain quarterback, #4, Jalen Monkman, who dropped back and hit freshman wide receiver Owen Austin, #10. Austin would outrace the field and take it all the way to the endzone, stunning the Red Devils, making the score 6-13 as the first quarter ended.
But the Red Devils weren’t done, using their running game they pounded the ball inside and then stretched the Bruin defense to the edges, quickly scoring to again stretch their lead to thirteen, making the score 6-19 early in the second period. The Bruins would take the ensuing kick-off to their own 27 before going three and out and having their punt blocked, giving the ball the Red Devils on the Bruins 26 yard line.
The Bruin defense would cause another turnover and recover on the 20 yard line, but would fail to convert to close the gap. Coquille would then drive the ball into the endzone, extending their lead to 6-25 and score once more before the end of the half, taking a 6-33 lead into the locker room.
Brookings-Harbor started the second half with the ball, but the defensive line of the Red Devils were determined to not let the Bruins back in the game, forcing another Bruin punt. Coquille then tried to power their way down the field, but the Brookings-Harbor adjustments slowed their running game considerably, ultimately stopping them on the 16 yard line.
The end of the third quarter and half of the fourth quarter was played between 30 yard lines as the Bruins forced three fumbles in the second half and suffered a turn over off of Monkman interception, just missing another long score.
With the Bruin defense stepping up and holding the Red Devils to just 2 points off of a third quarter safety, the Bruins took the Red Devils deep again, late in the game, with Monkman hitting senior wide-receiver Kyler Chistensen, #2, who would take it all the way for a touchdown, covering over 60 yards to make the final score, 14-35.
Talking with Head Coach Shaun Bavaro after the game he said, “We have to clean up our execution on both sides of the ball. We put our selves in position to make plays, we just didn’t execute and some timing turnovers really killed our momentum in the first half. We will continue our focus on fundamentals to clean those things up.”
The Bruins are on the road to Lakeview next Saturday, September 9th, to challenge the Honkers coming off a win over Douglas, with a 3:00pm Saturday afternoon kick-off.
