Second-quarter snowball sends Eagles rolling past Clovers

South Putnam's Kolby Harcourt crashes into the end zone from eight yards out, his third score of the night, during the Eagles' 69-0 romp over Cloverdale.

Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT

The opening 12 minutes of play at South Putnam had a back-and-forth feel as Cloverdale, despite giving up an early score, didn’t shy away from the hosts Friday night.

Once the first quarter ended, however, the reality of where both programs are became obvious as the Eagles racked up 42 more points before halftime, scoring in all three phases of the game, as the hosts barreled over the Clovers 69-0.

“(Cloverdale) has a lot of heart, a lot of character and they’re getting better,” South Putnam head coach Chuck Sorrell said. “They are on the rise; they’re not ready for us but they’ve got a chance to get some teams that aren’t ready as they did some good stuff and they look like a football team.

“I shook all their hands, told them to keep it up and keep their heads up. Their goal is to get to be as good as us they’ll get there if they keep going.”

“First quarter, I couldn’t be prouder with how we played,” Cloverdale head coach Tyler Lotz said. “Obviously (Saturday) at film, we’ll find things we need to work on but the thing we told the guys all week was make (South Putnam) drive the football.

“Don’t let them score in one or two plays and mistakes will happen. That’s what happened in the first quarter. Now, the second quarter on, especially the second quarter, was a disaster.

“We didn’t circle the wagons and play; we let one thing happen then another,” Lotz added. “Last year, we had a lot of turnovers, which was another thing we talked about. We had a couple of turnovers in that quarter and that gave them short fields to work with.”

South Putnam began the season in strong fashion, needing seven plays to go 60 yards, overcoming a holding penalty along the way, with Kolby Harcourt running four times for 43 yards, including a seven-yard score that made it 7-0 2:19 into the contest.

Cloverdale nearly giftwrapped a second score straight over, fumbling the snap on a punt after a three-and-out, but the hosts failed to take advantage as a false start meant a 15-yard pass play set up fourth-and-one and a bad snap on the attempt was recovered by Clover defensive end Noah Betz.

After a pair of first downs, the visitors again missed the snap on a punt but again, South Putnam had a bad snap of its own on fourth-and-two in the red zone.

“Rylan (Rumley) banged his hand up on Wednesday and just couldn’t grip the ball tonight,” Sorrell said about the snaps, leading to Jeremy Sutherlin taking over at center for the remainder of the game. “It’s no excuses for him and those two will continue to battle for the position as they have all summer.

“Whoever snaps the best and blocks the best will start and that’s the way it is for everyone on this team. The good news for us is we have about 30 football players ready to play varsity football and, for a Class A school, that is pretty good.”

Cloverdale was forced to punt again and, as the quarter expired, so too did South Putnam’s mishaps on the offensive end.

A 10-play drive was finished with five-straight Harcourt runs, the final one seeing the senior running back score from a yard out to double the lead to 14-0.

Tayt Jackson would complete his first two passes of the next Clover series to Ben Campbell but pressure on the next pass saw the attempt intercepted by Wyatt Mullin, who raced back 40 yards for a pick-six and a 21-0 lead.

Mullin intercepted Jackson just 11 seconds of game time later and this time a fourth-and-four was converted as Mullin hit Drew Hill for 16 yards, setting up Harcourt for an eight-yard plunge to make it 28-0.

Cloverdale also got its snap issues out of its punt formation fixed as well but the resulting kick was returned 35 yards for a score by Wyatt Switzer.

“We just started to calm down,” Sorrell said about the scoring rush. “We fed off our defense and outside of a couple bonehead penalties, we were in the right spots, had everything taken care of on defense and, once we got the snaps down, our offense is pretty dynamic.

Mullin added a second score for the night on a 55-yard weaving run, starting off to the right before sweeping back across the left, juking several defenders along the way, before capping the period with a 32-yard strike to Switzer to make it 49-0 at halftime.

“We have athletes on the field who can play football; it just comes down to us up front being able to execute up front and stay in front of guys,” Lotz said about being unable to stop the snowball from rolling out of control. “We couldn’t get things going on offense because Tayt was running for his life most of the time, so we just have to keep working and getting better up front.”

Even with the rolling clock in effect, South Putnam managed to find a trio of scores in the second half as Mullin hit Hill for a 37-yard score in the third quarter to make it 56-0.

The Eagle reserves grabbed the other two touchdowns as Drew Cline found Hayden Tincher for a 45-yard score and Ty Benton intercepted Tre Henderson for a 12-yard pick-six to close out the evening.

Both teams will play at home in week two as Cloverdale hosts Edinburgh while South Putnam hosts Owen Valley.

“It sounds cliché but we need to focus on what we can do to get better,” Lotz said about the meeting with the Lancers. “Edinburgh last year was similar to this game where things got away in the second quarter.

“We just can’t let things snowball, focus on us and take it one play at a time.”

“We have to win the trenches,” Sorrell said about facing the Patriots. “(Owen Valley) has big offensive linemen like they did last year, two big tackles on the defensive side and we’re going to have to move them, stay in our gaps and not let them run the ball.

“They want to throw it a bit more and we’ve got to cover well. We’ve got speed on the backend; we just have to play assignment football.

“We win the trenches, we should win the football game next week.”

Scoring

1st Quarter

SP — Harcourt 7-yard run (Kendall kick) 9:41 7-0

2nd Quarter

SP — Harcourt 1-yard run (Kendall kick) 9:49 14-0

SP — Mullin 40-yard interception return (Kendall kick) 8:20 21-0

SP — Harcourt 8-yard run (Kendall kick) 6:58 28-0

SP — W. Switzer 35-yard punt return (Kendall kick) 6:13 35-0

SP — Mullin 55-yard run (Kendall kick) 4:19 42-0

SP — W. Switzer 32-yard pass from Mullin (Kendall kick) 1:09 49-0

3rd Quarter

SP — Hill 37-yard pass from Mullin (Kendall kick) 1:38 56-0

4th Quarter

SP — Tincher 45-yard pass from Cline (Kendall kick) 4:42 63-0

SP — Benton 12-yard interception return (conversion failed) 2:11 69-0

Statistics

Individual Statistics

Rushing — 32-178, 4 TD — Harcourt 16-115. 3 TD; Mullin 6-58, TD; W. Switzer 4-24; R. Speth 1-4; Team: 1-(-23)

Cloverdale — 25-8 — Jackson 10-11; Johnson 8-1; Henderson 3-7; Team 2-(-15); Ramsey 1-2; Bridges 1-(-1)

South Putnam

Passing

Cloverdale — 8-23-57, 3 INT — Jackson 8-22-57, 2 INT; Henderson 0-1, INT

South Putnam 14-16-228, 3 TD — Mullin 13-15-183, 2TD; Cline 1-1-45, TD

Receiving

Cloverdale — Campbell 5-20; Boyd 1-22; Helton 1-13; Team 1-2

South Putnam — Hill 5-96, TD; W. Switzer 4-65, TD: Tincher 1-45, TD; Ensor 1-16; Dorsett 1-8; Harcourt 1-(-2)