By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Greenfield-Central’s Wishbone offense prevailed in a battle of ground-and-pound offenses on Friday night.
The Cougars (3-1, 1-1) defeated the visiting Pendleton Heights Arabians (2-2, 1-1) 35-0.
“We made some adjustments at halftime and talked to the kids,” Greenfield-Central head coach Travis Nolting said. “After a tough loss last week against Mt. Vernon it was nice to come out and get back on the winning side of things.”
The Arabians defense had nearly no answers for the Cougars rushing tandem of seniors Brayden Herrell and Andrew Zellers.
After an early interception by quarterback Dallas Freeman, the Cougars looked to those two to fuel the offense.
In the opening quarter, Greenfield-Central found the end zone twice within a 19-seconds stretch.
Zellers got the scoring started with two touchdown runs. The first from 1-yard out, then two plays after an Owen Anderson diving interception, a second score from 15 yards.
Zellers’ two scores were just the beginning of a big night for the Cougars rushing attack.
Herrell joined in on the fun as time expired in the opening half.
With the clock winding down and zero timeouts for Greenfield-Central, Nolting drew up a run play with 19 seconds on the clock. After being stopped, it was a scramble to the line, but the Cougars managed to snap the ball with just one second remaining in the half.
“We work on hurry-up offense at practice every day. After the timeout we told the kids we were running two plays, so if we didn’t get it on the first we needed to get on the ball,” Nolting said. “It was close, but it was kind of a nail-driver to go up three scores at half. Kudos to our kids for having the discipline to get up there and snap it.”
With the game already out of reach, Herrell matched Zellers with his second touchdown of the night. He broke off a 28-yard run to the outside near the end of the third quarter.
“Honestly I think our weightroom progress and conditioning really showed tonight,” Herrell said. “In the second half we could tell that they were tired so we just continued to run it at them.”
Herrell led the Cougars with 132 yards, Zellers added 118 yards, and Gael Bravo broke off a few big runs, including a touchdown of his own, to finish the night with 66 yards. In total Greenfield-Central accumulated 345 yards rushing.
“I’m proud of the offensive line’s effort,” Nolting said. “Over 300 yards on the ground and two guys over 100 yards is a pretty good night. We were able to spread the ball around to a lot of guys and do a lot of different things with it tonight.”
A game in which they won 35-0 could’ve been even bigger of a win if it wasn’t for a few mistakes in the opening half. Two fumbles by the Cougars run game ended potential scoring drives.
“We’ve got a young guy back there running things so it’s just about going out and practicing and getting repetitions in and fine tuning the things that we need to,” Nolting said. “When you run the option you have a risk of fumbling it. I thought Dallas did a great job of reading things and when he needed to throw he made great throws.”
The defense had a big night of their own holding the Arabians to 125 yards of total offense. Some big fourth-down stops and sacks near the red zone stalled long drives by Pendleton Heights.
Brodie Mayberry was responsible for two sacks and Payton Foley tacked on one.
”It was a great job by the defense,” Nolting said. “They responded very well.”
The Cougars now look ahead to next Friday when they continue on with Hoosier Heritage Conference play and travel to Shelbyville.
“I’m proud of the effort,” Nolting said. “We just have to keep getting better and better every day.”
