Box Score One of the many factors that make Bridgeport's High School football program one of the state's most successful is the ability to focus on the task at hand.
The past couple of weeks featured a lot of chatter about who the Indians would play in the first round of the playoffs and where. A lot of that was completely out of the players hands, the only thing they could do is focus on the regular-season finale against Lincoln.
There were nine possessions in the game for the Indians and all nine ended with a rushing touchdown as Class AAA No. 8 Bridgeport improved to 8-1 with a 62-14 victory against the Cougars.
The Indians will head to the postseason for the 31st consecutive year, which is a running state record and will be at home in the first round as the No. 8 seed against No. 9 George Washington. Most projections had Bridgeport slipping to No. 9 and having to travel to face Oak Hill in the first round. But the Red Devils lost to University on Friday and combined with Linsly defeating Morgantown and a couple of other outcomes, Bridgeport's playoff journey will begin at home.
"We told them coming over that there was no reason to think Lincoln wasn't going to battle against us, they always battle against us," BHS coach Tyler Phares said. "I was happy with the way they played."
Zach Rohrig and Josh Love each went over 100 rushing yards in the game for the Tribe. Rohrig had 131 yards on 17 carries with three touchdowns and Love had 122 yards on 14 carries and two touchdowns.
Rohrig moved into fourth place on the school's all-time leading rushing yardage list in the modern era (dating back to 1997), surpassing both Brett Hathaway and Cam Cole in the first half. Rohrig now has 3,287 yards in his career. This year, Rohrig has 1,320 yards and 20 touchdowns.
Love edged closer to 1,000 yards for the season as he now has 830 yards to go along with 13 touchdowns. Love is also the leading tackler on a standout defense. He entered the Lincoln game with 80 tackles and certainly added to it as the Indians held the Cougars to -12 yards rushing and 150 yards of total offense.
"It was huge to come out here and play our game and play at our speed," Love said. "To get our offense clicking like that, our line played like beasts and our backs were breaking tackles. We scored everytime we had the ball. It's huge going into the playoffs like that.
"On defense, I feel like we have the best D-line in the state. They make it so much easier on the backline of the defense. They put so much pressure on teams and we just close it out."
The BHS defense got off to a strong start as the Indians forced three-and-outs on each of Lincoln's first three possesions.
The first defensive stand was highlighted by a sack from Beau Ford and Aidan Sparks and on offense the Indians responded with a nine-play drive where each play was either a run by Rohrig or Love. Rohrig capped the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run. Gavin Williams kicked his first of seven PATs to make it 7-0.
Rohrig's second TD came from 2 yards out capping a 12-play drive.
On Bridgeport's third drive, the Indians had two big plays to get the ball down to the Lincoln 1. Jack Spatafore completed a 31-yard pass to Donovan Williams, who made another highlight-reel catch in traffic.
"Donnie's a weapon for us," Phares said. "He's getting better and better every week. He's practicing better every week and he made another huge catch for us. We kind of needed that play right there because Lincoln forced us to do something different."
Rohrig followed with a 30-yard run and was brought down just short of the end zone. He punched it in from 1-yard out for his third TD of the game.
The Cougars picked up their initial first down with about 7 minutes left in the second quarter as sophomore quarterback AJ Bart completed back-to-back passes to Aidan Rice. Rice came up with another big catch on the drive reeling in a 19-yard catch on fourth-and-9.
On fourth-and-18, Bart threw a 37-yard touchdown pass to Maddox Perine.
Bart, who surpassed 2,000 passing yards for the season in the game, later threw another TD pass on fourth down, hooking up with Noah Sears for a 24-yard touchdown on the last play of the first half. Both of Bart's TD passes were great throws that had even better catches.
"There was no broken coverage or anything like that," Phares said. "Both times the kid went up and made a great catch. Both were defended well, sometimes you just have to say hats off to a kid making a great play."
Timmy Jeffress, filling in for Tanner Hathaway at wing back, and Love scored in between Bart's two touchdown passes. Jeffress ran in from 11 yards out and Love scored on an 8-yard run.
Love then capped the Indians' second-half drive with a 6-yard touchdown run.
"Josh is such a playmaker for us," Phares said. "Offense, defense, special teams, good things happen when we get the ball in his hands"
The Indians would go on to two rushing touchdowns from Alex Moses on a 6-yard run and 1-yard run, his sixth and seventh scores of the season.
The final points of the game came via a 4-yard TD run from John Knight.
Bridgeport finished with 432 yards of total offense, 384 on the ground and 48 through the air.
Even with the loss, Lincoln will be in the Class AA playoffs as the No. 16 seed and take on No. 1 North Marion in the first round.
Time, dates and locations for all first-round games will be finalized on Sunday at the WVSSAC playoff meeting in Parkersburg.
