This one was over 30 seconds after the opening kick.
The #1-ranked Coffee Trojans defeated the Bradwell Institute Tigers 62-6 at Jardine Stadium in the first region game of the season, improving their record to 6-0 overall and 1-0 in region play.
It was as thorough a beatdown as the Trojans have handed to any region opponent in a long time. Coffee scored its first touchdown 30 seconds in the game and never looked back. The Trojans led 28-0 at the end of the first quarter and 56-0 at halftime. There was a running clock in the second half; Coffee just managed one more score over the remaining two quarters.
The Tigers, meanwhile, couldn’t find the end zone until the very last play of the game — a 34-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Christopher Garrett to Jahzhia Thomas. Bradwell Institute faked an extra point and tried to go for two but the Trojans stopped Garrett well behind the line as time expired.
Two Trojans — senior receiver Daniel Gowen and sophomore receiver Timothy Burch Jr. — scored their first varsity touchdowns in the game.
Fred Brown scored Coffee’s first touchdown on a 16-yard run following a pitch and throw from quarterback Maurice Hansley (who was back after missing several weeks due to an ankle injury) to Bray Coe to Tyriq Edwards. That play set up Brown’s score.
Jaquavious Simpkins blocked a Tigers’ punt on Bradwell Institute’s first possession. The blocked punt led to Gowen’s touchdown, a 13-yarder from Hansley.
Simpkins set the stage for another Trojan touchdown after he intercepted Garrett on the next drive. On the defensive side of the ball, Simpkins wasn’t done, either. He intercepted Garrett, which paved the way for senior Anthony Paulk to run it in from four yards out to put Coffee up 21-0 (Jonah Saylor extra point) with 5:10 still remaining in the first quarter.
Before the quarter ended, Brown scored again. And right as the second quarter opened, Paulk reached the end zone for the second time on a 25-yard pass from Hansley to give the Trojans a 35-0 (Saylor point-after) advantage. A few minutes later, Isaiah Johnson picked off Garrett and returned the interception to the Bradwell Institute 13, which put Coffee in another position to score. Burch scored from the six on an end-around play. Four minutes later, Hansley found Jayden Hancock for a 42-yard touchdown. Then, with 24 seconds remaining in the first half, Brown scored for the third time to put the Trojans ahead 56-0.
Coffee scored for the final time with 6:00 left in the ball game when junior Tyrese Hansley bounced into the end zone from the four. This time, the kick was no good. The Trojans were up 62-0. The shutout looked safe until Garret capitalized on busted coverage and finally put the Tigers on the board as the clock zeroed out.
Brown scored three touchdowns (his second hat trick of the season) while Paulk scored two touchdowns. Maurice Hansley put an exclamation point on his return by throwing down a hat trick of his own with three touchdown passes.
“I thought we executed our play-action stuff and had some wrinkles. We’ve got to continue to do that. We’ve got to continue to get better throwing the football to relieve the pressure off our running game. We’ve got to keep getting better. We didn’t tackle real well. I’m not pleased with our tackling defensively. So we’ll get to work on that and get better, getting back to where we were tackling. It didn’t look like us defensively tackling. We came back and made some plays but when we play a better football team it will cost us,” said head coach Mike Coe following the game.
Next up for the Trojans are the Statesboro Blue Devils in Statesboro next week. Friday night, the Blue Devils defeated Greenbrier 10-3 to improve to 2-4 on the season. Greenbrier feel to 0-6.
Following the Statesboro game, Coffee will be at home for two in a row then travel to Waycross for the season finale against Ware County.