Coach Bavaro and his 6-1 Bruins met up with the run away train that is the 6-1 Cascade Christian Challengers. The Challengers came into this match-up averaging 45 points per game, having scored 316 points in 7 games while holding their opponents to an average of 12 points per game.
The Bruins, celebrating ‘Senior Night’, started the game by winning the coin toss and deferring to the Challengers. Cascade Christian wasted no time establishing their ground game, driving down to the Bruin 25 yard line. Just 3:00 minutes into the first period, the Challenger quarterback dropped back and hit a 25 yard pass play into the back right corner of the endzone, putting the Challengers up 0-7 early in the game.
Brookings-Harbor’s offensive game was nullified by the overall speed of the Challengers defense. The Challengers swarmed on defense, refusing to rely on one player tackles as the Challengers did not allow the Bruins to sustain any offense.
Cascade Christian scored 6 touchdowns in the first half of play as the Bruin defense struggled to match the Challengers speed to the edges. The Challengers did their homework and took the game plan that the Douglas Trojans used two weeks ago with long drives running the ball wide to tire Bruin speed to the edges, and individual battles in the trenches to tire the line.
After softening the edges and spreading the Bruin defense out, the Challengers found a soft spot in the Bruins secondary. They then worked on getting the ball over the top of the Bruin linebackers and in front of the defensive backs, allowing the Challengers to run for extra yards and a 45 yard touchdown.
Although the Challengers primarily ran the ball, they scored 3 of their 7 touchdowns off of big plays for big yards from their passing game. They also scored on a 72 yard special teams punt return.
The Bruins could not keep the Challengers out of their own backfield offensively or defensively which allowed Cascade Christian to disrupt the Bruin offense through out the game, ultimately keeping the Bruins from getting into the endzone. In his Coach’s Corner article Friday before the game, Coach Bavaro emphasized “Our defense needs to be solid all game, Cascade Christian has playmakers that can take it the distance at anytime” and when we get in the red zone, we need to come away points”.
Talking with Coach Bavaro after the game only made his earlier statement more poignant as he said “We had some opportunities early and didn’t get it done. Cascade Christian just had too much speed and congratulations to them, they played well.”
The Bruins will close out regular season play next Friday against the 8-0 Hidden Valley Mustangs in Grants Pass, Friday, November 1st at 7:00pm.
