Brown County's strong second half leads to Cloverdale loss, 22-14
CLOVERDALE -- Cloverdale's football opener against Brown County might have started slowly, but it certainly ended with a bang.
Tied at 6-all at halftime, Brown County scored 14 points in the third quarter en route to an extremely hard fought 22-14 win over the Clovers.
After both teams punted to open the game, Brown County set up the opening score of the game after a pair of Dylan Quackenbush runs netted 61 yards.
Dillon Boknecht later hit Luke Huis for a 12-yard touchdown pass to put the Eagles ahead 6-0.
Both teams struggled to hold onto the ball in the second quarter. Brown County started the process by allowing a backwards pass to bounce around.
Cloverdale's Brock Dickison picked the loose ball up and ran 45 yards to the Eagle eight yard line.
Two plays later, though, Cloverdale's Bret Brumfield missed a handoff and Brown County recovered the loose ball.
Four plays and 40 yards later, Eagle receiver Julian Ercoli lost the handle on an end around and Cloverdale's Jonathan Smith claimed the loose pigskin.
The hosts would capitalize on this turnover by scoring six plays later on a Justin Wilson quarterback sneak to level the scores at 6-all.
Brown County tried to mount a drive towards the end of the first half but stalled out on the Clover 14-yard line.
The Eagles would not be so generous in the second half.
After Cloverdale punted to open the third quarter, Boknecht hit Ercoli twice for 49 yards, setting up a sneak for Boknecht to push the lead to 12-6.
Boknecht added the two-point conversion with a toss to Ercoli to make the score 14-6.
Cloverdale responded with a run-heavy 14-play drive that ran out of steam deep in Brown County territory.
The Eagles again scored after the combination of Boknecht to Ercoli netted 54 yards on a play to set the visitors up deep in Clover territory.
This time Quackenbush would seal the deal from a yard out and Boknecht hit Brandon Callahan for the two-point conversion to increase the lead to 22-6 at the end of the third quarter.
Cloverdale started their next possession in Eagle territory and had a score wiped off by a block in the back penalty. The drive ended on downs when Wilson was sacked by Brandon Fisher.
Brown County nearly handed the Clovers a gift two plays later when Quackenbush was hammered hard and lost the ball. Brody Pfaff ran it in for six. But again the score was wiped out by a penalty.
Wilson was sacked four plays later to end another drive within the Brown County 20 yard line.
The Eagles punted four plays later but Cloverdale had excellent field position on the Brown County 29-yard line and finally got a score on the board.
Five plays after getting the ball back, Wilson snuck in from two yards out and Andrew Howard converted the two point-play to cut the deficit to 22-14 with 5:42 left in the game.
The game began to get chippy as a pair of personal fouls were awarded on the next Brown County series.
The Eagles faked a punt and nearly converted a fourth and 17 situation only for the run to be negated by a block in the back.
Cloverdale would not be able to advance the ball and Wilson was intercepted by Huis to seemingly put the game away.
Just before Brown County looked to close the game out, the lights suddenly turned off.
After a 15 minute delay, the Eagles were able to string together a pair of first downs to finally win the contest.
Afterward, Cloverdale head coach John Butler said that the early game mistakes were things that the coaching staff anticipated happening.
"Going into week one you expect week one mistake, ones that you correct with more practice. Tied at halftime, we felt everything was going as planned," Butler said.
"We told the kids all week that third down was our money down. If we got four yards on first and second down and completed short passes, we'd be able to drive and score and win football games.
"We just couldn't convert on offense or defense on third down very well tonight."
Brown County was able to exploit Cloverdale errors in the second half and Butler said it was a case of the players continuing to develop in the defense.
"Coach Petty has done a nice job of installing a new defense but at times they just forgot an assignment or a situation. Those are correctible things," Butler said.
Butler was most impressed with the resiliency of the squad and their unwillingness to give up late in the game.
"That's the biggest thing, in my opinion, as a coach, is to teach kids to respond to those adverse situations," Butler said.
"For our kids to approach being down two scores, even with the turnovers and changes in possession, they never stopped competing.
"Kids either have that or they don't and our kids have gained that and I'm so proud of that. They've worked too hard to give up in those situations," Butler added.
Next week against Indianapolis Marshall, Butler said the Clovers really just needed to keep working on the little things.
"We need to work some individual skills, whether it is ball drills, catching passes, footwork and general fundamentals at each position," Butler said.
"We coach all the time on those things and we have to continue getting better at them."
At Cloverdale
Brown County 6 0 14 0 -- 22
Cloverdale 0 6 0 8 -- 14
Scoring
First Quarter
3:01 -- Huis 12-yard pass from Boknecht (two-point conversion failed) 0-6
Second Quarter
2:00 -- Wilson 2-yard run (XP no good) 6-6
Third Quarter
9:26 -- Boknecht 1-yard run (Boknecht pass to Ercoli) 6-14
0:04 -- Quackenbush 2-yard run (Boknecht pass to Callahan) 6-22
Fouth Quarter
5:42 -- Wilson 2-yard run (Howard Run) 14-22
Stats
Total Yards
Brown County 357, Cloverdale 269
Rushing
Brown County 27-100, Cloverdale 39-155
Passing
Brown County 14-27-257, TD, Cloverdale 5-17-114, Int.
Next Game: Cloverdale hosts Indianapolis Marshall next Friday.