After giving up 43 points in a season-opening loss at Gibson Southern, the Columbus North defense did a little soul searching last week.
The result was an inspired effort on a sweltering Saturday morning at Columbus East. The Bull Dogs allowed only five first downs in a 28-0 victory.
“Last Saturday, we put on the whiteboard, ‘Rebound Week,’ and that was something that we were really focused on all week long for our entire team, but certainly for our defense that gave up 43 points,” North coach Tim Bless said. “We needed to have the maturity and the discipline to rebound from a tough go against a really good team down there Week 1.”
The Bull Dogs (1-1) did that with a bend-but-don’t-break performance. They stopped the Olympians (0-2) three times in the red zone, including twice inside the 10 and once at the 2-yard line.
That allowed North to take a 26-25 lead in the series with East and post the series’ first shutout since the Bull Dogs won 12-0 in 2002.
“We came well prepared,” North senior middle linebacker Connor Essick said. “We knew the more prepared team was going to come out and win. We were in film all week, and we came out more prepared and came out with the ‘W.’ Last week, we weren’t tackling as well and we weren’t covering. This week, we just came out and gave all we had and shut them out.”
Offensively, the Bull Dogs scored on their final three drives of the first half and their first drive of the second half. Luke Hammons hit Keegan Castetter for the first two scores, the first coming on a 37-yard crossing route with 7:30 left in the first half.
North got the ball back, and Hammons found Castetter on a 9-yard fade route, and the Bull Dogs led 14-0 with 2:52 left in the half.
“I was trying to get the ball to (No.) 1, and once we got the ball in the end zone, we wanted to keep on coming,” Hammons said. “The O-line blocked well, the receivers ran their routes perfectly and it was a good game for the offense.”
North’s defense forced another three-and-out, and a 28-yard punt return by Jaxson Scruggs set the Bull Dogs up at the East 16 with 1:10 left in the half. Three plays later, Castetter took a lateral pass from Hammons and ran 10 yards for his third touchdown of the half and a 21-0 lead.
“In the first quarter, we were a little tight,” Castetter said. “We just took advantage of what they were giving us. We saw what they were giving us, and we just exploited it and did our job.”
The Bull Dogs reached into their bag of tricks on their first second-half possession. Wide receiver Cooper Horn took a pitch on a reverse and threw a 44-yard pass to Castetter. That set up a 1-yard sneak by Hammons.
“I thought our defense played pretty well most of the game,” East coach Eddie Vogel said. “Those three (first-half) touchdowns all came against the blitz. It was their best on our best, and their guys made plays. Their perimeter players are pretty talented, and Hammons is obviously very talented and distributes the ball well and then adds a dimension with his legs as well. So we had our hands full with those guys, and they won those battles today.”
The Olympians put together their best drive of the game in the late-third and early-fourth quarters, highlighted by a 22-yard pass from Ethan Duncan to Ryan Buckler. But North stopped Duncan for no gain on third-and-goal from the 3, then held Tryce Villarreal to a 1-yard gain on fourth-and-goal.
East got the ball back at the 16 on a Rocco Duffy interception. But a personal foul penalty pushed the Olympians back, and they would eventually turn it over on downs.
“I’m so proud of our defense,” Bless said. “I didn’t come in expecting that we were going to shut out Columbus East’s offense by any means. But I thought our defensive effort was spectacular.”
The Olympians’ first scoring opportunity came on its second possession with the score tied 0-0. On second-and-13 from his own 31, Duncan broke into the clear and was pulling away from the North defense for what would have been a sure touchdown. But as he looked back to see if the defense was gaining ground, he lost control of the ball, and the Bull Dogs recovered at the 9.
Could the game have turned out differently had East gone up 7-0?
“You never know,” Vogel said. “But what I do know is that two weeks in a row, ball security had kind of showed its ugly head. So that’s something that we’re going to continue to work on and have to improve on.”
Duncan, who picked up 60 yards on that run, finished with 17 carries for 64 yards to lead East on the ground. He completed 4 of 10 passes for 60 yards.
Hammons completed 11 of 15 passes for 107 yards, with Castetter catching nine for 142 yards. Dyllan Redmon, who returned after leaving the Gibson Southern game with a sprained MCL, ran for 57 yards on 12 carries.
“We have to be patient,” Bless said. “We weren’t great early and mishandled the ball a little bit, but were able to weather that storm and then started to get our traction. Then, I think our discipline, our maturity, strength and conditioning, our scheme all started getting some momentum and definitely kept that momentum into the locker room and didn’t let go in the second half.”
The game was played Saturday morning after lightning on Friday night caused it to be postponed.
“(Friday), I was mentally preparing the whole day, and you’re ready to play,” Hammons said. “Being sent home (Friday) night, I knew we had to stay focused, and we came out and did our job.”
“It was tough,” Castetter added. “We were mentally prepared for it, though. We were ready.”
