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Bridgeport High School Indians

Bridgeport High School Indians
Calendar
Squad
Ben Queen Photography
48
Winner Bridgeport BHS 7-0
14
Spring Valley SVHS 4-3
Winner
Bridgeport BHS
7-0
48
Final
14
Spring Valley SVHS
4-3
Score By Quarters
Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th F
BHS Bridgeport 14 27 7 0 48
SVHS Spring Valley 0 7 0 7 14

Game Recap: Football | | Tyler Kennett

Indians Roll At Spring Valley

By Tyler Kennett
The Herald-Dispatch

Class AAA No. 1 Bridgeport ran past No. 7 Spring Valley on Friday, 48-14, in Huntington to move to 7-0 on the year.

The Indians totaled 357 yards of rushing on 44 carries, led by Gavin Williams' 128 yards and two rushing touchdowns on 14 totes. Kasen Baun followed with 105 yards and two scores on seven carries, and Eli Knight added a final rushing score and 22 yards.

Through the air, Bridgeport completed two passes, both for touchdowns, in a 43-yard day for Graham Vincent. Williams snagged one, and Sean Veltri had the second.

Spring Valley's Caiden Lovejoy led the charge with 57 yards on five carries. He also completed four of his five passes for 91 yards and a touchdown to Dae Dae Page.

"We were just outmanned," Spring Valley coach Brad Dingess said. "They controlled the line of scrimmage, their backs ran hard, they fall forward.

"Really good football team. I don't know if anyone can beat them or not."

Bridgeport forced a three-and-out from Spring Valley before scoring its first touchdown on its second offensive play. A 28-yard touchdown for Williams, along with his own extra point attempt, gave the Indians a 7-0 lead with 9:21 left in the first.

Stuffed again, Spring Valley opted to try for a conversion on fourth-and-2 from its 18-yard line. Miguel Cain was blown up at the line of scrimmage, and the Indians took over. A pair of rushes for Williams set up Knight for a 7-yard touchdown, gaining the change in four plays and taking a 14-point lead with five minutes left in the quarter.

"That was the message in the locker room," Bridgeport coach Tyler Phares said. "Any time you're playing a good team on the road, it's important to get a good start. We wanted to jump out and try our best to shock them. We were excited that they were going for it on fourth down. We knew it would be a big momentum swing if we got a stop, and we did."

Spring Valley rallied. Lovejoy collected 47 yards in a brief burst to the sideline. He nearly found a receiver in the end zone, but an offensive pass interference call waived it. Later in the half, a dropped ball in the middle of the field on a wide-open look. Dingess said there were missed opportunities.

"We threw the ball well at times, and we could move it a bit at times," Dingess said. "We had a pass interference call within the five, and we drop another one that we could've scored. There were times where we had opportunities to keep it close."

After the Timberwolves pinned Bridgeport at the 1-yard line, a 60-yard blitz for Baun got the Tribe out of danger and closed the first quarter at the Spring Valley 24. Baun followed quickly from four yards out for a 21-0 lead on a Williams boot.

Williams does it all for Bridgeport, booting four kickoffs for touchbacks on the night while also kicking the extras.

"I'm spoiled as a coach," Phares said. "Any time you can kick it off and put it into the end zone is a weapon in itself. That makes your defense better. If you get a quick three-and-out, you get good field position.

"Huge weapon for us, he's helped with field position all year."

A Spring Valley punt put Bridgeport at the 50 to march again. The Tribe did so in eight plays and scored with a 4-yard Gavin Williams rush to lead 28-0 with 5:05 left in the second.

Bridgeport averaged 8.1 yards per carry on the night. Everybody in the stadium knows the run is coming, but by having the ability to run direct snap sweeps, double handoff pitches, sprints in tandem and an eventual pass out of the same look, no one can stop it.

"They were reading keys, and that's fun for us. When they read the keys, we have key breakers that we get to run," Phares said. "If a team is blitzing, we don't have to. They read a little bit, so we had some fun by moving the backs around and opening holes for the boys."

After forcing another turnover on downs from the Timberwolves, Vincent worked a fake from the wing and fired to Veltri for a 27-yard score. A failed two-point conversion left the score 34-0 with 4:04 left in the first half.

Spring Valley found life via Lewis. He collected two of Spring Valley's six first-half first downs in consecutive carries before the Wolves went back to the air.

It was like watching two trebuchets when Spring Valley, in a Wing-T, and Bridgeport, in the Single Wing, would go to the air. Both pull off a couple of winding fakes and motions before tension is broken and a boulder gets launched over the top to the wide-open man.

After a 22-yard completion from Lovejoy to Kanon Dillon, Lovejoy found Page for 11 yards and the lone Wolves touchdown of the half, trailing 34-7 with 37 seconds remaining.

"Really aggravating that when we did score that we let them score right there before the half," Dingess said. "That was a gut punch, but good teams do that."

Bridgeport had just enough time to score. Williams gained a chunk into the Spring Valley territory before a personal foul put the Indians in the red zone.

Vincent then launched another rock, stepping forward as if he were to run, pulling the secondary with the fake and hitting a wide-open Williams for a diving 16-yard touchdown.

Bridgeport led 41-7 at halftime.

Opening with possession in the third quarter, Bridgeport chewed over six minutes from the clock with a 10-play, 63-yard drive capped off by a 26-yard sweep on fourth down for Williams and a 3-yard touchdown for Kasen Baun to stretch the lead, 48-7 after three.

"Great to see that. We wanted to come out, kept the ball on our side and continuously run the clock down," Phares said.

Bridgeport fumbled to open the fourth quarter on a pitch play, and the Timberwolves recovered it. Lovejoy then found Dillon for a 50-yard gain out of an I-formation screen. The final 10-play drive ended in a 5-yard touchdown for Colton Mathis to close the game at its final margin.

Bridgeport (7-0) travels to Preston at 7 p.m. on Oct. 17.











 

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