Bearing down

By BRIAN WOODSON

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BASTIAN, Va. — These were not your ordinary Bears.

Bland County led 6-0 over Graham late in the second quarter before Taymon Cooke caught a short pass from Ben Meade. He did the rest, with a little help from his friends.

“It was great blocking, DeQuan (Booker) had a great lead block,” said Cooke, a Graham freshman. “Once I got in the open field, I knew nobody was going to catch me.”

Graham (2-6) rolled from that point, outscoring Bland County 26-6 in the second half to pull away for a 33-12 Mountain Empire District win over the Bears to snap a three-game losing skid for the injury-riddled G-Men.

“Winning sure is a lot more fun than losing so we are glad to get this one against a much improved Bland team,” Graham head coach Mike Williams said. “They are a senior heavy team and I knew they would be tough.”

It was. Bland County (3-5) took an early 6-0 lead on a 35-yard run by Brian Arnold with 5:27 left in the first quarter, while forcing Graham to punt on its first five possessions of the opening half.

“We hardly had a first down in that first half, they were playing tough defense,” Williams said. “I knew they were going to be a different team this year and they absolutely were, they were toe to toe with us all the way up to the finish.”

“They said they had 12 seniors so we knew they would come out and try to beat us,” added Cooke, who had two receptions for 82 yards and two scores.

Bland County had chances, outgaining Graham 219-115 in the opening half, but turned the ball on downs twice at the G-Men 14 and 25, and Mason Christian fumbled on another possession while trying to reach the ball in the end zone from the 4.

Booker scooped the ball up for the G-Men.

“We left too many points on the field in the first half, we had opportunities and we should have completed drives and we just didn’t, that hurt us,” Bland County head coach Harris Hart said. “(Mason) was trying to make a play, you can’t criticize that.

“If he makes the play we are feeling pretty good about ourselves, it just didn’t happen, but the kids played hard and I am proud of them.”

Graham, which had one first down and 24 yards prior to its final possession of the first half, finally got rolling on a 3rd down pass from Ben Meade to Israel Harris for 27 yards, and G-Men drove to the Bland 42.

“When you have got a team that is pretty aggressive as Bland is, screen type plays tend to work,” Williams said. “That was the first one we threw on the night and it busted for a touchdown.”

Meade then threw that screen pass to Cooke, who avoided a pair of tacklers and then sprinted down the left sideline for the 58-yard touchdown with 1:02 on the clock. Logan Surface followed with the extra point, and the G-Men took a 7-6 lead into the break.

“I was proud of the way our kids played, if we can just correct a few mistakes here and there,” Hart said. “The first score they had we had two defenders right there with hands on him and the kid made a good move and had some speed and just outran us...There were a lot of ifs and ands out there.”

Graham wasted little time getting on the board in the third quarter, with the G-Men giving the ball to Kyshon Lee, who would finish the game with 130 yards and a late touchdown. He dashed 49 yards on the quarter’s fourth play, and Harris followed with a 15-yard run for a touchdown.

“We looked at what they were doing on defense and thought we could get some runs up the middle,” Williams said. “We made that adjustment at half and luckily for us it worked.”

Graham tacked on another score after a Bland punt, with Meade completing passes to Roman Workman from 25 and 16 yards, and Paris Ballard from 15 and 16. Meade then finished off the 11-play, 76 yard drive with a 1-yard plunge for the 21-6 lead.

“We play hard, the second halves, I don’t know what it is about it, but we never do good in the second halves,” said Bland County senior Dakota Wright, who never leaves the field for the numbers-shy Bears. “I don’t know if we lose heart as soon as we get down. In the first quarter I was excited, it was great and then I don’t know what happened.”

“He is a tremendous football player, he is a physical football player,” said Hart, of Wright. “He plays all over the field defensive and offensively and he is pretty daggone good.”

Bland County did score again on the first play of the fourth quarter on a 9-yard run by Dylan Jackson, a play set up by Christian’s 26-yard run. That would be it for the Bears, with Graham’s defense stiffening from that point, led by Adrian Gray, who sacked Christian on a 4th and 7, and added another sack later in the game.

“(Adrian) is a tough kid, he has got a great motor, he has one of those motors you wish all your kids had,” Williams said. “When you keep coming hard every play you are going to make some good plays and he made some big ones for us tonight.”

Graham added a pair of late touchdowns, including a 24-yard touchdown pass by Workman to Cooke, and Lee later got loose for a 43-yard scoring run.

With Dylan Cook and Jarrod Richmond already out for the season, the G-Men may have gotten more blows on this night, with Meade leaving with a possible concussion, while Booker was helped off late in the game.

“I don’t think people realize what we have been playing without this season and what we will be playing without in the next two games,” Williams said. “We have been without some of our better players for a good chunk of the season, I don’t know if people realize that, but our kids keep plugging along.”

Bland County, which had 83 yards from Christian and 69 from Isaiah Boyd, will continue its season on Friday at Galax, followed by a visit from Fort Chiswell to finish the campaign on Nov. 7.

“We will keep practicing, try to get better and trying to eliminate some of these mistakes and see what happens,” Hart said.

Graham, which got 57 yards rushing, a touchdown and an interception from Harris, returns to Mitchell Stadium for its final two games, hosting Fort Chiswell and Narrows over the next two weeks.

“We are glad to get this one,” Williams said. “We will enjoy it tonight and we will start looking at Fort Chiswell tomorrow.”

at Bland County Athletic Fields

Graham...........0 7 14 12 — 33

Bland County.......6 0 0 6 — 12

First Quarter

BC—Brian Arnold 35 run (kick blocked) 5:27

Second Quarter

GR—Taymon Cooke 58 pass from Ben Meade (Logan Surface kick) 1:02

Third Quarter

GR—Israel Harris 15 run (Surface kick) 10:27

GR‚—Meade 1 run (Surface kick) 2:02

Fourth Quarter

BC—Dylan Jackson 9 run (run failed) 11:56

GR—Cooke 24 pass from Workman (run failed) 2:40

GR—Kyshon Lee 43 run (kick failed) :46.3

———

Team Statistics

First Downs: GR 13; BC 15. Rush-Yards: GR 36-238; BC 56-329. Pass Yards: GR 188; BC 5. Total Yards: GR 426; BC 334. Comp-Att-Int: GR 8-17-0; BC 2-11-1. Fumbles-Lost: GR 3-0; BC 3-1. Penalty-Yards: GC7-75; BC 5-44. Punts-Avg: GR 5-30.2; BC 2-35.0

———

Individual Statistics

Rushing: GR Kyshon Lee 15-130, Israel Harris 12-57, Taymon Cooke 3-3, DaQuan Booker 1-3, Logan Surface 1-(-4), Ben Meade 5-(-9); BC Mason Christian 12-83, Isaiah Boyd 11-69, Dylan Jackson 15-50, Brian Arnold 6-41, Keith Miller 8-39, Colton Slaughter 6-19, Alec Taylor 1-2. Jacob Parker 1-2.

Passing: GR Ben Meade 7-16-0 int-164-1 td, Roman Workman 1-1-0-24-1 td; BC Mason Christian 2-10-0 int-5-0 td, Alec Taylor 1-0-1 int-0-0.

Receiving: GR Taymon Cooke 2-82, Roman Workman 2-41, Paris Ballard 2-37, Isaiah Harris 1-27, Nick Morgan 1-7; BC Isaiah Boyd 2-5.

Turnovers: GR DeQuan Booker fr; Israel Harris int.