Terrier football Terriers cruise to victory in thrashing of Granite City
After a dominating, 38-18 win over the Granite City Warriors at Bleyer Field last Friday night, Carbondale head coach Bryan Lee was happy about the preparation done by all Terrier coaches except one: himself.
"Our offense and defense look great. Our coaches did a great job," Lee said after the big win. "But I'll have to have a long talk with our special teams coach - he was not good."
Though the thought of Lee facing himself in the mirror and telling himself to do a better job is amusing, Lee was spot-on in his assessment of the Terriers' performance last Friday night. The Carbondale offense ran up 452 yards equally divided between running (223 yards) and passing (229 yards). The Terriers took a bit to rev their offensive engines, but when they got going, they were unstoppable.
The Warriors were gifted with their first touchdown because of a faux pas by a player on Lee's special teams group. Carbondale's defense stopped the Warriors in their first drive of the game, and they punted. The ball bounced to the Terriers' 30, and a Terrier attempted to pick it up.
That was OK. But, inexplicably, the player put it back on the ground again. Then a Warrior defender pounced on the pigskin. A few plays later, Granite city star Freddy Edwards took it in to the Terriers' end zone to make the score 6-0 Granite City.
Further on in the game, Carbondale's kick-off team lofted a soft kick right to Granite's Edwards, with 10 other Granite players to choose from. Not a smart move. Edwards again took it to the "house" to make it 12-0 Warriors at the end of the first quarter.
After adjusting their special teams philosophy a bit, Lee and his charges had little trouble the rest of the night, running over the Warriors with relative ease. This is now a football team, fans, and that team never gives up even when down.
"Five years ago, we were a train wreck as a program," Lee said. "We wouldn't have come back and won a game like this."
How they did come back was impressive for sure. In that second quarter, the Terriers were hitting on all cylinders. Ragland and his receivers were on each other's radar all night.
At the 10:32 mark, CCHS quarterback Darius Ragland hit Tyrono Williamson with a 49-yard bomb to make it 12-7 Granite City.
Then, at the 7:09 mark of the second, Ragland motored for another Terrier score on a spectacular, 39-yard run that featured several broken tackles and a great spin move.
Finally, at the 2:51 mark of the second quarter, Ragland tossed a 23-yard scoring pass that made it 28-12 in favor of the Terriers at the halftime break. You've probably noticed a common theme in the second quarter scoring barrage: Darius Ragland. Ragland has more than 400 passing yards in his first two games and reliably gets the ball to his fleet receivers when there's a need. But he also is a great runner in the open field. The best part of the whole situation is that he is only a junior.
Along with top receivers like Williamson and Clayton Greer, Ragland and his sophomore running back, Gabe Hilliard, were unstoppable. Also unstoppable was Macey Davis. Davis was sick and out for the game against Murphysboro. She showed her true value last Friday by personally scoring eight of the Terriers' 38 by kicking five extra points and a field goal (worth three points).
One special teams unit was great. That would be the punt team. Ragland again was the star with an average of 48.3 yards per kick.
The Terriers are home again tonight against Waterloo. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Bleyer Field.