CLASS 3A SHOWDOWN: Knights clobber Eagles in semifinal rematch
MA’s Arch Lee gets a face full of the arm of Jeremiah Cobb in Friday’s clash between the Eagles and Knights. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Start with an interception on the game’s first play from scrimmage, sprinkle in a fumble on your next kickoff return and you have the making for a long night if you’re playing a good team.
Catholic needed absolutely no help, but Montgomery Academy was a generous visitor and Catholic obligingly turned the mistakes into points in a dominating and impressive 42-0 win over the Eagles at Catholic on Friday night.
Similar to a 7-6 win over St. James in 2017 that signaled the Knights were ready to challenge for city supremacy, Friday’s punishing victory against a good Montgomery Academy team that was shut down in every aspect of the game was a good indicator that this year’s Knights have the firepower to finish the job started by last year’s team that reached the 3A finals before losing.
“It was more of a statement,” said Catholic linebacker T.J. Dudley, who had 10 tackles, including 2.5 for loss. “A lot of people said we were blowing people out because of the people we were playing and they didn’t think we were really that good. So we had to come make a statement.”
Montgomery Academy (4-2), which had won 16 of the last 19 games in the series, suffered its worst loss ever in the series and the worst to a Capital City Conference team since losing 42-0 to Trinity in 1992.
“Honestly, our defense played outstanding in the first half,” MA coach Robert Johnson said. “We just kept putting them in unbelievable situations on all different kinds of things, whether it was turnovers, kickoffs, punt returns or whatever. That just wore us down.
“Hats off to Catholic. We couldn’t block them. I think that was the biggest difference in the ballgame more than anything else.”
It was the fifth worst loss ever for Johnson, who has 25 years of coaching at virtually every level of high school football and has rarely had a team manhandled the way Catholic dominated the Eagles on Friday night.
Montgomery Academy managed just one first down all night and had just 35 total yards, including just 32 rushing yards on 22 carries. Jashawn Cooper and Jamal Cooper managed just 18 yards, with Jashawn getting 14 on eight carries and Jamal getting four on four carries.
“They’re not good, they’re really good at running the ball,” Catholic coach Kirk Johnson said. “Hats off to the coaching staff for putting a game plan together and then the kids for executing the game plan. Those Cooper boys are hair-puller-outers. They make you worry. We knew the different things they bring because we played them two times last year.”
The Eagles’ first play was an interception that led to a touchdown and the next time they touched the ball on a kickoff return, they fumbled it. The Knights would finally score a pair of touchdowns in the second quarter on a Dudley run out of Wildcat formation and a Caleb McCreary scramble to the end zone, but MA was fortunate to trail just 21-0 after surrendering field position in just about every way imaginable. Both teams had seven first-half possessions, with MA’s average field position on its 15-yard line and Catholic’s average starting field position on the MA 34-yard line.
“Special teams, offense, defense, they all played a big role in helping us flip the field,” Dudley said. “Every time we’d get a punt, a kickoff, anything we were able to flip the side of the field.”
Jeremiah Cobb made sure to kill any thoughts of a rally by the Eagles, sprinting 68 yards on the first play of the second half through a huge hole created by the Catholic offensive line.
“We didn’t change anything,” Cobb said. “My O-line is really good and worked their butts off tonight.”
“Our offensive line coach, Jim Chappell, went to them and challenged them and they responded to that challenge,” Kirk Johnson said. “We saw some things and were telling them it’s there, you’ve just got to do what we’re telling you to do. Early on, maybe we made the game too big.”
The next Catholic possession was more of the same. Cobb went 74 yards, it just took him five carries to get there, scoring on a 7-yard run that made it 35-0 and caused officials to resort to a running clock.
At that point, Montgomery Academy turned to its reserves in an effort to find playing time for its younger players. Catholic, meanwhile, kept its starters in the contest through the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, using an LJ Green interception of a Parker Cook pass to set up McCreary’s 30-yard run to the end zone on the next play for the game’s final points.
“It’s nothing personal,” Kirk Johnson said. “I made a promise to the (first-team) defense. They haven’t been scored on yet. The two touchdowns we gave up were on a kickoff return (by Reeltown) and a late touchdown (by Dadeville) against the ‘twos,’ so I made them a promise I’ll try to leave them in as long as I can without being disrespectful.”
If Robert Johnson felt disrespected, he gave no indication.
“He’s responsible for his team, I’m responsible for mine,” the MA coach said. “That’s all I can say.”
Catholic (6-0) remains home for next week’s region game with Pike County, but Kirk Johnson didn’t feel like Friday’s win was any different than any of the previous five wins by the Knights.
“It matters because it’s local, it matters because they’re a private school in Montgomery, but for us to accomplish what we want to accomplish, they all have to be the same,” he said.
Cobb finished with 263 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 23 carries, missing the opportunity to go over the 300-yard mark when a 38-yard touchdown run was wiped out by a penalty. True to his coach’s philosophy, the junior tailback offered no feelings on routing one of the best teams in the state on Friday.
“They’re just the next team on the schedule, nothing really special,” Cobb said. “We were 1-1 (last season) in the series, now we’re 2-1.”
Montgomery Academy (4-2) is idle next week, getting two weeks to prepare for region games on the road against Greensboro and Thomasville. The Eagles was one-dimensional in Friday’s game, managing just three yards on three completions, but Robert Johnson counted the loss as a learning experience for his players.
“When you play a great team like that, you get exposed and there’s just some things we’ve got to get better at,” he said. “We’ll see those things on film and we’ll do our best to be able to compete.”