 |
|||||||||||||||
|
***Listen to the radio play back between Guthrie and Harrah Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m. on Guthrie Sports Page Radio.
Harrah -- The Guthrie BlueJays continued their dominance of the Harrah Panthers by earning a 35-0 shut-out win, on Evans Field, and stay unbeaten in district play.
Guthrie records their first shut-out of the year and scores a season high 35-points.
Jays head coach Rafe Watkins won his 80th game as the Guthrie head man and is a ridiculous 50-9 in district games that dates back to 2001. In addition, Watkins' Guthrie teams are now 32-7 in the month of October.
The Jays used a solid defense to keep Harrah behind the sticks for a majority of the night. The Panthers were also hampered with penalties at ill advised times (10 for 80-yards).
"It was an ugly game. We stayed healthy and that is the main thing," Watkins said in his post game radio interview talking about the penalties that eliminated a would be score on a blocked field goal and multiple big plays that amounted to over 100 would be yards for his Jays.
To hear the complete radio interview with Watkins click here.
Harrah could only put up 94-yards of total offense as the Jays flexed their muscles and showed the Panthers why they are the top ranked team in 5A against the run as Harrah could just muster 60-yards on the ground. Entering the game, Guthrie allowed 66.8-yards rushing per game.
In the first five weeks of the year, Harrah had averaged 291 yards of offense with 234 of those coming in the rushing department.
The Panthers struggled on third down conversions by finishing one of 10 (10%) and had just two first downs in the final two quarters.
Guthrie quickly jumped out to a 7-0 lead when freshmen quarterback Bryan Dutton found a wide open senior Hank Hudson for a 50-yard connection on the fifth play of the game.
Guthrie striked again 39-seconds into the second quarter when Dutton found junior play maker Kentrell Brothers.
Harrah pinned the Jays at their own 3-yard line, but four plays later Guthrie had their longest drive of the season on just four plays.
Brothers brought in a catch from 35-yards out, but then broke a tackle at the 45 and then out dashed the Panther secondary to the end zone for the 90-yard touchdown reception to increase the Jays lead 14-0. Brothers finished the night with 4-catches and 117-yards receiving and now has four receiving touchdowns on the season.
Just like they did in the first half, the Jays scored on their first drive in the second half. This time Dutton found his third different receiver for a touchdown pass.
Dutton, who was allowed ample time by the offensive line, found yet another wide open receiver. This time it was senior Corbin Crockett who brought in the 24-yard score to give the Jays a 21-0 lead with 6:36 to play in the third quarter. Crockett now has two TD receptions this season.
Dutton finished with 191-yards passing with 164 of those yards coming on touchdown tosses alone.
The Crockett touchdown reception gave Dutton his fourth consecutive game of throwing three touchdown passes. On the season, he has thrown 13 scores and has thrown six interceptions, including two Friday night.
The BlueJay defense got in on the scoring fun with the Chappell cousins causing havoc.
Landry Chappell, who lead the team with 62 tackles going into the game, forced a fumble in the end zone that allowed Jaden Chappell to recover it for the Jays fourth score of the night.
Jaden Chappell was named the Farmers and Merchants Bank Player of the Game while Landry Chappell was named the Tyler Nichols Heart of a Champion Award.
Harrah did a nice job of not allowing the BlueJay run game to get going. The Panthers held Guthrie to just 55-yards total and leading the way in that category was senior back J.P. Bruner.
Bruner finished the scoring spree by taking in a 5-yard score to cap off a 5-play drive to finalize the scoring.
The longest offensive drive of the night was 2:51 with the three other drive times being 1:31, 1:31, and 1:33.
The only drama left in the fourth quarter was whether the Jays were going to preserve the shut-out and it looked bleak after Harrah picked up a Jays fumble and returned to the Jays 3-yard line thanks to a hustling junior Alphonso Wilcox with the tackle to keep Harrah off the scoreboard. Guthrie then held the Panthers from entering the end zone.
"I tell you I was proud of Alphonso Wilcox running down that fumble down there because the defense definitely deserve the shut-out," Watkins said.
Harrah drops their season record to 3-3 and 1-2 in district play and will look to get back in the win column next week when they take on Noble (0-6, 0-3).
The Jays will practice Sunday afternoon as the practice week is moved up a day due to the Thursday night game with the Titans. Majority of the high school football schedule will play Thursday due to Fall Break across the state.
Share your thoughts on this story by going to the Guthrie Sports Page message board. It's free to join and talk Guthrie athletics. Click Here! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.gif)
