Terriers try to revive offense against Orphans tonight
The History Channel says one of the greatest mysteries of mankind is the Navy's loss of planes over the infamous Bermuda Triangle in 1945. They disappeared without a trace. I say that mystery pales in comparison to the Carbondale Terriers football team's loss of their offense in a 38-14 head scratching "L" last Friday to Waterloo at Bleyer Field.
Some say the Navy planes were abducted by aliens, but little green men can't explain the abduction of the usually potent Carbondale "O," which only garnered 288 yards and appeared to embody the famous saying, "Tis better to give than to receive."
The Terriers had five turnovers and eight penalties. The turnovers included a pick six by Wyatt Fink. Fink, a jumbo-sized defensive tackle for the Warriors, ran an intercepted Brock Bowlby slant pass 75 yards to make the score 28-0 Waterloo at halftime.
"We had a lot of penalties (eight for 70 yards) and a lot of issues," Carbondale coach Bryan Lee said. "Brock (four interceptions) looked like a sophomore in his passing decisions tonight. But he'll get better at that as a junior and senior."
Bowlby did have some positives. He hit on 18 of 29 passes for 158 yards and two touchdowns.
But his interceptions took his team out of any offensive rhythm. However, Bowlby's bad night was not the biggest mystery in the Terriers' loss.
Carbondale's usually super running back, Gabe Hilliard, had been averaging 170-plus yards rushing per game coming into last Friday's contest, yet the Warriors' defense bottled him up the whole game.
Hilliard had 47 rushing yards in the loss, averaging only 2.8 yards per carry for the night.
It was obvious that Waterloo coaches had game planned on stopping Hilliard - and the game plan worked to perfection. There were always three or four Warrior defenders in Hilliard's zip code every time he was handed the ball.
"We didn't get our usual output from Gabe," noted Lee, " Unfortunately we did not get that output, and it really hurt. We had some good plays but could not build on them all night."
The Warriors were led by tough running back Ethan Davis.
Davis had 113 rushing yards just in the first half and finished the game with 170 (four fouchdowns).
The Terriers' offense finally came alive in the waning moments of the fourth quarter. Bowlby hit Demarcus Funchess with a 25-yard touchdown pass with 6:14 left in the game (38-7 Waterloo) and William Skiles had a catch and run for 73 yards to make the final 38-14.
Hopefully the Terriers will recover their composure when they travel to Centralia. The 2-1 Orphans are improved, but they also got blasted last weekend by Mascoutah (42-7) so they can be beaten.
The 7 p.m. game will be the South Seven opener for both teams.