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Saturday,
September 7, 2002
BHS finds spark in second half
By Randy Reinhardt
Pantagraph staff
NORMAL -- Bloomington High School football coach Rigo
Schmelzer's halftime speech dealt with execution Friday at Hancock
Stadium.
And when the Purple Raiders returned to the field for the second half,
the dueling zeros on the scoreboard reminded them of what their
first-half offensive execution had yielded.
"We realized we were a much better team than we were playing the
first half," said BHS quarterback Andre Brown. "We came out a
little more fired up, realized the job we had to do, recognized what it
took to do it and got it done."
Brown led BHS on a 69-yard scoring drive to open the second half and
the Raiders scored all of their points in the third quarter to blank
Normal Community, 13-0, in the middle game of the Intercity Tripleheader.
Ranked second in Class 6A, BHS moved to 2-0 overall in the Big 12 West
Conference opener for both teams. NCHS is 1-1.
"I started to write some stuff on the board (at halftime) and I
just stopped," Schmelzer said. "There wasn't much needed to be
changed except for some execution."
On the first possession of the second half, a scrambling Brown dumped
a pass off to tailback James Wade, who converted a third-and-10 by
sprinting 29 yards to the NCHS 26.
Five plays later, a 12-yard completion to Billy Frank got the ball to
the 3-yard line. On third down, Wade took a pitch right in from 1 yard
out for a touchdown.
"I thought they came out with a little more energy the third
quarter than we had," said Ironmen coach Hud Venerable. "Andre
made some big third-down conversions that were big plays in the game.
That's what he does."
BHS' second scoring drive was much quicker. A 15-yard pass from Brown
to Eric Esch and a 17-yard Wade run preceded a 30-yard sweep around left
end by Wade for another score at the 47-second mark of the third quarter.
Garrett Thompson blocked the extra point.
"The first half we were just trying to run them over. But we
didn't think enough," said Wade, who ran for 87 of his game-high 127
yards in the second half. "The second half we took time to think. We
were loose, we had fun and that's when things started to work for
us."
Wade helped BHS pile up 168 yards rushing. Brown completed 9 of 21
passes for 104 yards.
"We went more to the pass the second half," Schmelzer said.
"Before the final drive of the first half we were 4-1 (ratio) run to
pass. That's not what we need to do to be successful."
NCHS drove to the Raiders' 29- and 15-yard lines in the fourth quarter
but were turned away on fourth down both times.
BHS, which shut out the Ironmen for the first time since 1994, was led
in tackles by Ryan Pankey with nine and Noah Wyatt and Chad Olson with
seven each.
NCHS also had its chances in the first half. The Ironmen had the first
big offensive play of the game when quarterback Kyle Matthews hit Cody
Roberts with a 43-yard pass. But three plays later at the Raiders' 21,
Matthews was intercepted by Justin Harrison.
The Ironmen moved to the BHS 22 late in the first half before Harrison
pounced on an NCHS fumble.
"That second quarter we had so many chances to score once. To be
ahead at halftime would have been huge," Venerable said.
"Overall, I'm proud of the way we competed."
Matthews, who replaced Joe Kingdon in the second quarter, completed 7
of 16 passes for 122 yards. Antoine Kennedy rushed for 45 yards on 14
carries for the Ironmen, while Eric Scott had 44 yards on 15 attempts.
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