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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Freshman running back Damien Bates had his
second career 100-yard rushing game of the season going for a season-high
118 yards, but Garden City had too many big plays against the Hutchinson
Community College football team on Saturday night at Gowans Stadium.
Garden City rolled up a season-high 462 total
yards, including 252 rushing yards as the Broncbusters defeated Hutchinson
31-10.
Bates had his best game as a Blue Dragons,
not only in terms of statistics, but overall play. Bates ran the ball a
season-high 25 times for 118 yards. He had four runs of 10 yards or more,
including a long of 21 yards.
“He took it to another level tonight,” HCC
head coach Rion Rhoades said of Bates. “I told him to keep on keeping on. He
was taking it at them good. Several times there were guys in position to
make a tackle on him, and he was running with enough confidence and zip to
miss them or make them miss him.”
Bates helped the Blue Dragons (1-4, 1-2
Jayhawk Conference) to their second-best offensive output of the season of
230 yards (118 rushing, 112 passing).
HCC quarterback Chris Todd completed 9 of 17
passes for 112 yards and one touchdown. He was sacked only once after
getting sacked 17 times in the first four games, but still was harassed all
night by Garden City blitzes.
Freshman Brandon King was the top Dragon
receiver with three catches for 32 yards. Sophomore Danny McEvoy had two
receptions for 61 yards and a touchdown. Freshman tight end Michael Feighny
had two catches for 12 yards.
But the Blue Dragon defense struggled with
missed tackles, giving up 15 plays of 10 yards or more to Garden City.
“Missed tackles are an epidemic right now,”
Rhoades said. “It’s something that we have to fix and it’s something that we
can fix. At this level, you have to be athletic enough to make tackles and
No. 2; you have to have enough effort to finish a play. It’s disappointing
when you miss as many tackles as we did.”
Garden City put a dent in the Blue Dragons’
league-leading pass defense. Garden City quarterbacks Eugene Smith and Luke
Miller combined to go 14 of 19 for 210 yards. Many of those passes were
shovel passes that went for big yards after missed tackles. The main
recipient of those shovel passes was Cameron Kenney, who caught nine balls
for 133 yards.
“Had had some good plays and we had some bad
plays,” said sophomore linebacker Antwon Canady, the team’s leading tackler
who had seven tackles against the Busters. “The main thing is fundamentally,
we are missing tackles and crazy stuff like that. We are there, we just have
to finish plays. We need to get better.”
The Dragons were unable to do anything with
their first two possessions, but Garden City cashed in on its second drive.
Maurice Greer’s 2-yard run capped off an 11-play 64-yard drive for a 7-0
lead with 2:39 to play in the first quarter.
The Busters went up 14-0 when Smith broke
several tackles on a 64-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 lead with 6:47 to play
in the second half.
The Blue Dragons answered with an eight-play,
80-yard drive that was highlighted by HCC’s longest play from scrimmage this
season when Todd found a wide-open McEvoy in stride for a 54-yard touchdown
pass to cut the Garden City lead to 14-7 with 2:56 to play in the first
half.
The Dragons survived a late Garden City drive
and went into the locker room down 14-7 at halftime when Kenney missed a
46-yard field goal in the final seconds of the half.
“That gave us a nice spark in the first
half,” Rhoades said of the Todd-to-McEvoy TD pass. “We go to halftime 14-7
and we are feeling pretty good about ourselves. In the third quarter, I felt
like we controlled the game. We did a good job of establishing the run.
Damien Bates had some good blocking and he did a good job of moving the ball
down the field. “
Garden and Hutch traded third-quarter field
goals – Hipshar connected on his first career field goal of 23 yards with
8:09 to play and Kenney answered with a 27-yarder to push the lead back to
seven at 17-10 with 6:14 to go in the period.
The Dragons looked to be moving in for a
tying TD, but Garden City’s defense stiffened with the Dragons facing
third-and-1 at the Garden City 36. The Dragons failed to convert the first
down, pinned the Busters deep after Kevin Crow’s 34-yard punt downed at the
2.
Garden City took control of the game going 98
yards in seven plays with Anthony Chalmers going the final 39 yards for a
touchdown and a 24-10 lead with 14:04 to play in the game.
“The play that sticks out,” Rhoades said. “We
were third-and-1 on about the 36 and we don’t convert. It was 17-10 at that
point and we didn’t convert. There are plays that are momentum changers and
can affect the mood and the momentum. That was a play that needed to go in
our favor and it didn’t.”
Garden City added a touchdown with 26 seconds
left for the game’s final margin.
The Blue Dragons will play host to Fort Scott
next Saturday night at Gowans Stadium.
GAME NOTES – Receiver Lane Hensley
didn’t play because of injury. … Antwon Canady had to miss a few plays in
the second half because of an injury. … The Busters have won three straight
games in the series and now lead HCC 37-29. … Saturday’s game broke a
three-game run for receiver Danny McEvoy of having at least six catches in a
game. … Freshman Jasper Simmons had three kickoff returns for 73 yards and a
long of 26 yards.
<COMPLETE
HCC-GARDEN CITY BOXSCORE>
OTHER QUOTES
Head Coach Rion Rhoades
On keeping the team focused despite the
losing record …
“We are really, really close, even in this
game. Our guys will battle back. I told them we don’t have a choice. We got
knocked down and the alternative to not getting back up and battling back it
to lay there and that’s not going to be an option for us.”
Sophomore receiver Danny McEvoy
On the offense …
“The offense can score. But we can’t keep
stalling like we do every game. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot every
single ball game.”
On Damien Bates …
“Damien was like a horse tonight. Give him
the credit on our long drives. He put us all the way down the field. We need
to continue to feed him the ball, but we need to quit committing penalties
and shooting ourselves in the foot.” |
