NORTH ROBINSON (Crawford County Now) — The Eagles were deadlocked with a perennial powerhouse at halftime. But size and experience proved the difference as Hopewell-Loudon downed Colonel Crawford 38-22 Friday night in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference opener at H.J. Gary Field.
Colonel Crawford (1-2, 0-1) spotted the highly ranked visitors a two-touchdown lead early in the contest but fought back valiantly for a 22-22 halftime score.
“I said before the game that — in this, my fifth year as head coach here and all the teams we played in the playoffs — I thought walking in that besides Kirtland, they’re the best team,” Eagles head coach Jake Bruner said.
“We watched them on film, and they get 3 yards every play. They’re disciplined. They’re tough and physical, and they’re just deep.”
Those weapons were on display as H-L struck on a Kellen Frankart 11-yard touchdown on its initial drive. After a Crawford punt, Brody Brickman slipped into the flat and caught a pass covering 68 yards for another score and a 14-0 lead with 4:09 left in the first quarter.
Hopewell-Loudon (3-0, 1-0) ran for 236 yards with Brickman (110) and Frankart (104) leading the way.
“We physically just took over the football game in the second half,” Chieftains head coach Brian Colatruglio said. “Offensive line, running backs, tight ends, physically took over the game. That last drive: that’s kind of what we hang our hat on there.”
But before that happened, the Eagles made some noise of their own.
Star wideout Parker Weithman caught a 26-yard TD in the closing seconds of Q1 to get Colonel Crawford on the board.
But Hopewell answered right back with another long pass, this one going for 62 yards with Brickman on the receiving end.
That 22-7 lead was short-lived as Avery Powers grabbed a Jacoby Ellis pass and raced 43 yards to the house. The extra-point kick by Lucca Troiano made it a 22-14 contest with 2:23 left in the half.
After forcing a H-L punt, Colonel Crawford drove to the Chieftains’ 3-yard line. From there a bit of trickery ensued when quarterback Roen Thew handed off to Powers, who flipped the ball to Weithman who found a wide open Thew in the end zone. The kick knotted the game at 22-22 with :22 before halftime.
The third quarter started well for the Eagles when junior Kyle Smith intercepted a Hopewell-Loudon pass but failed to move the ball beyond midfield.
Several penalties hurt both teams during drives, and CC received two unsportsmanlike conduct flags in the third quarter.
“The problem was I didn’t think anything other than both teams played extremely hard. Both have a ton of respect,” Bruner said. “But we’ve got to be more disciplined. That’s on us as a program.”
The ground-and-pound attack took over as the Chieftains drove 95 yards in 14 plays to cap off the win with a Brickman 1-yard run.
“Obviously, our league has changed a little bit and they’re a heck of a football program. And we knew that with competitive balance, we were going to go through a pretty big storm,” Bruner said.
“We lost last week to a D-IV program (Fairfield Union), and we had some kids who didn’t play tonight.”
One was junior linebacker Gabe Stratton, last year’s leading tackler, who was out with a leg injury.
Weithman had another impressive outing, holding onto the scoring pass despite taking hits from two defenders. He caught 5 balls for 139 yards, plus his TD pass.
“We were worried about his legs. It was hot out there. He wouldn’t come out on a run play and get water. He’s just a fierce competitor and a heck of a football player,” Bruner said.
Starting off 1-2 is unfamiliar territory for this program.
“I’m not a bit worried about our kids. We talked about this before the year even started. They’ve heard that the group before them is the special group and these guys … 9 of them played and 5 played a ton in some big roles for us last year.
“A harder schedule, a harder league … everyone told them it’s not gonna go well. Listen, our kids fought and clawed. We’ve still got a lot to go and our schedule is front-loaded. They’ll keep showing up and we’ve found some kids who will compete.”
The Chieftains expected a stiff challenge, Colatruglio said.
“The first two weeks, we were physically better than those teams. But I knew they (Colonel Crawford) would be tough and fight back. I’ve been looking forward to this game all week,” he said.
“We knew what a great program these guys have. Kids play their (butts) off. This is why they work so hard in the off-season. This is a great football league, and the depth of our league is really good,” Colatruglio said.
Last season H-L was 13-2 and fell to Kirtland 41-6 in the Division VI state finals.
Box score
Score by quarters
Hopewell-Loudon 0 0 0 7 — 7
Colonel Crawford 7 21 0 7 — 35
Scoring summary
First quarter
HL — Kellen Frankart 11 run (Frankart run), 7:38.
HL — Chase Rogier 68 pass from Jacoby Ellis (pass failed), 4:09.
CC — Parker Weithman 26 pass from Roen Thew (Lucca Troiano kick), :14.
Second quarter
HL — Brody Brickman 62 pass from Ellis (Brickman run), 4:32.
CC — Avery Powers 43 pass interception (Troiano kick), 2:23.
CC — Thew 2 pass from Weithman (Powers pass from Thew), :22.
Third quarter
HL — Brickman 4 run (Sam Humphrey pass from Frankart), :20.
Fourth quarter
HL — Brickman 1 run (Frankart run), 2:05.
Individual statistics
Passing
Hopewell-Loudon: Jacoby Ellis 7-15-2 180. Colonel Crawford: Roen Thew 11-16-2 194, Parker Weithman 1-1-0 2.
Rushing
Hopewell-Loudon: Jacoby Ellis 4-6, Brody Brickman 20-110, Kellen Frankart 18-104, Collin Link 2-16. Colonel Crawford: Roen Thew 8-0, Avery Powers 14-55.
Receiving H-L: Brody Brickman 3-93, Chase Rogier 2-79, Sam Humphrey 1 (-1), Adrian Ponn 1-9. CC: Parker Weithman 5-139, Carson Rader 2-14, Avery Powers 1-17, Tyler Lash 2-15, Kyle Smith 1-9, Roen Thew 1-2.
Team statistics
HL CC
First downs 15 13
Rushing 44-236 22-55
Passes 7-15-2 12-17-2
Yards passing 180 196
Total yards 416 251
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-0
Penalties 6-70 4-50
Punts 2-44.5 4-35.0