BHS suffers another loss, this one to South Effingham
By Kevin Price
For GCS Athletics
The Brunswick High Pirates likely saw what chances they had to make the postseason disappear Friday night as they lost 35-31 to South Effingham in a key Region 1-AAAAAA game at Glynn County Stadium.
The Pirates were No. 42 in the Postseason Rankings that will set the 32-team Class AAAAAA playoff field coming into Friday night.
This loss, the third in a row for the Pirates, figures to drop them deeper in the pack and dash the playoff aspirations the defending region champions had in their first season under head coach Byron Slack. They have only two more games left on the season schedule.
“Most likely it does do it for us,” Slack said when asked about the postseason hopes ending.
BHS fell to 3-5 overall and 2-3 league with the loss.
South Effingham, meantime, entered the week at No. 28 in the rankings and should move up. The Mustangs are now 6-2 and 3-2 in the region with games left against Glynn Academy at home next Friday and Bradwell Institute on the road to round out the season.
The Pirates led Friday’s game 17-14 at halftime and went ahead 24-14 early in the third quarter, only to see South Effingham get right back in the game.
The Mustangs got a 98-yard kick return for a touchdown by Semaj Calhoun and then a 35-yard interception return by Maddox Vasquez to go on top 28-24 less than five minutes into the third period.
“That was a 14-point swing right there,” Slack noted.
Brunswick did regain the lead on its next possession when senior running back Nigel Gardner ran 32 yards for a score and a 31-28 advantage following the Braxton Davis point-after kick with 4:39 left in the third.
The Pirates actually missed out on a chance to pad that advantage when they took over on downs at the South Effingham 33-yard line after a bad sequence by the Mustangs when they were going to punt the ball back to the Pirates.
The Mustangs were flagged for illegal procedure on their first fourth-down play when they kicked the ball away. The Pirates chose to back them up 5 yards and have them kick again.
This time, South Effingham didn’t have enough players on the field and tried to run a man on before the snap. They got flagged on the play for an illegal substitution, but their punter wound up throwing an incomplete pass on the play as well. The Mustangs had already pulled off a fake-punt for a big gain and a first down earlier in the game.
BHS accepted the result of the play, giving them the ball on South Effingham’s side of the field. Their head coach called timeout to question the ruling and its execution.
The Pirates couldn’t take advantage of the field position, however, as a Keygan Walker pass on second-and-8 was picked off at the goal line by the Mustangs.
That’s when the downfall began for the Pirates as the game went to the fourth quarter.
The Mustangs would score on their ensuing drive with the help of two pass interference penalties against the Pirates. The second one negated a Brunswick interception along the visiting sideline and gave the Mustangs a new set of downs at the BHS 42-yard line.
“It is as bad as call as I’ve seen,” Slack said when asked about it after the game.
South Effingham cashed in a few snaps later when senior athlete Danny Murtha went 30 yards for a touchdown along his sideline on a reverse. That score put the Mustangs up by the 35-31 final count with 9:55 left in the game.
BHS would drive from its 26 to the South Effingham 12 when a fourth-down pass fell incomplete, giving the ball back to the visitors with 6:57 to play.
South Effingham would work the clock down inside the final minute, pounding the ball at the Pirates on the ground much like Glynn did last week when the Terrors kept the ball for the final 10 minutes of the game to hold on for a 21-17 win in the City Championship Game.
The Mustangs drove all the way to the BHS 13 before the Pirates got the ball back when the Brunswick defense stopped a fourth-and-5 play from the 14-yard line.
With only 56 seconds left and no timeouts, the Pirates did send their big-play offense back onto the field with a chance for a late score and a possible victory. The Pirates would gain only three yards, though, on four plays.
They threw an incomplete pass on first down which was followed by a loss of 2 yards on a quarterback scramble and then a 5-yard gain on a third-down pass. But on fourth down, Walker was pressured and a short desperation pass fell incomplete on the turf.
“We’re on the minus side with finding ways to win. We’re finding ways to lose right now,” Slack said. “We’re finding ways to come up on the short end.”
BHS, which lost senior running back Josiah Gibbons in the second half due to injury, finished with 332 yards to 256 by the Mustangs. The Pirates rushed for 211 yards, getting a game-high 146 yards on 19 carries by Gardner who scored a pair of touchdowns on runs of 32 and 57 yards.
Gibbons carried six times in the first half for 59 yards as he scored on a 44-yard run for the Pirates before halftime.
Walker, who was intercepted twice, finished the game 9-of-15 passing for 121 yards and a touchdown which covered 9 yards to Isreal Henry in the third quarter as Brunswick went up 24-14.
Henry caught five passes for 66 yards in the loss.
For South Effingham, which ran for 180 yards, leading rusher Khyran White carried 19 times for a team-best 79 yards in the win. Murtha, who scored the winning touchdown for the Mustangs, ran for 70 yards on nine carries while picking up all but three of his yards in the second half.
BHS opened the scoring when Gardner scored his first touchdown midway through the first quarter for a 7-0 lead. The Mustangs drew even early in the second quarter on a 1-yard run by Liam Coburn, their quarterback, that capped a 15-play, 71-yard drive.
The drive was kept alive by a 15-yard penalty for the Pirates on a fourth-down pass play when the ball fell incomplete. It looked like BHS had made the stop, but a defensive back was called for targeting which resulted in a new set of downs for the Mustangs at the BHS 17-yard line.
Gibbons gave BHS the lead again early in the second on his TD run, but after the Mustangs faked a punt to extend a drive and wound up tying the score, the Pirates added a 27-yard field goal in the closing minute of the first half to grab the 17-14 lead at the break.
The Pirates will be back at home next week against Effingham, which defeated Grovetown on Friday night by 42-21. The Rebels are 6-2 overall and sit on top of the region standings with a perfect 5-0 league record.