Bluefield bashes G-Men
Bluefield (76) vs. Graham (48)
Written: Aug 30, 2014
By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — Once the Bluefield Beavers got their offense straightened out, the Graham G-Men could not keep up with them.
Four Beavers rushed for 107 or more yards and Bluefield racked up 573 yards of total offense en route to a 76-48 season-opening victory over crosstown rival Graham on Friday night at June O. Shott Field at Mitchell Stadium.
All nine of Bluefield’s touchdowns, including the last one as time ran out, were generated on the ground.
Bluefield acting head coach Freddy “Fritz” Simon said, “I didn’t feel like they could shut us down with the run. ... We’re going to have a strong running game this year, we feel. We’ve got a lot of guys to go to with a lot of speed. We’ve got power, as you saw with our quarterback and our fullback.”
Simon was substituting for his father, Fred Simon, who sat out the game because he was ejected in the Beavers’ last game, a playoff contest last November.
Graham head coach Mike Williams said, “For the most part, we moved the ball well. We’ve got to play a little better defense — or, a lot better defense.”
“I think they just wore us out.”
Bluefield scored on its first possession, which lasted 54 seconds. D.J. Stewart, who wound up with 107 yards on 15 carries, tallied the first score from a yard out.
It was the only touchdown of the first quarter. The Beavers lost fumbles on their next two possessions.
Graham narrowed the gap to 8-7 on the first play of the second quarter, a seven-yard pass from Ben Meade to De’Quan Booker followed by an extra point kick.
That was as close as the score would get. Bluefield’s Carlos Reed took the next play 69 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown.
The G-Men answered with a three-play scoring strike. Meade passed to Booker, who leaped to wrestle the ball away from what appeared to be destined for an interception, and spun away for a 50-yard touchdown. The point-after kick made the score 16-14.
Graham lost Meade for the game with 5:29 left in the half, on a sack by Jordan Masterson. He was helped from the field favoring his right knee and did not return.
Williams said, “We’ve got good players, but we’re pretty thin at a lot of positions. Of course, when the quarterback went down in the second quarter, that took our second tight end from us and really limited some things we could do.”
Roman Workman took over at quarterback, ending his duty at tight end and linebacker.
Bluefield tallied two second-quarter touchdowns on runs by former Graham player Corey Coppola, who ended the night with four scores and 131 yards rushing.
Coppola said, “I came out and played hard. We had some mistakes ion the first half, fumbles. I decided to step up. My line did a HECK of a job creating holes for me.”
“The defensive line held strong, DBs (defensive backs) struggled at first but they came through in the end for us.”
Graham narrowed the Beavers’ lead to 29-21 on the final play of the half. Workman launched a tight spiral that carried about 40 yards diagonally across the field to freshman Taymon Cooke, who jumped to catch the ball in the front corner of the end zone.
Williams said about Workman “He’s a starting quarterback at the high school level. He played a great game at quarterback, but having him at quarterback, we lost a linebacker and a second tight end. That was a problem with that.”
Workman finished with 106 yards passing, going 10 for 14.
The Beavers added 29 points in the third period and 18 more in the final quarter, and did not turn the ball over after the first quarter. Coppola and quarterback R.J. Bourne found success running up the middle.
Bourne rambled 49 yards to the goal line halfway through the third period, dragging a defender the final four yards. Bourne racked up 119 yards rushing and 12 yards passing.
Dylan Cook had three touchdown runs for Graham in the third quarter, and ended the day with 140 rushing yards on 16 carries.
Reed dashed for 173 yards on just four carries, taking most valuable player honors.
Reed said, “I knew I was capable of it, but I never thought it would happen especially as a sophomore. I’m just glad it did.”
“I just want to thank my line. That’s the first thing. Without them, we couldn’t have scored as many points as we did.”
“I’m just glad we got the win.”
There was no defensive player of the game award, but a worthy candidate was Bluefield’s Masterson.
He played hard all night,” Simon said about Masterson. “He made some good licks, and played aggressive, the way we want. Outside of him, we’ve got to get better in some situations, as far as pass defense (is concerned). We’ll get our practices, and learn from our mistakes.
Simon said, “The only time they really stopped us was when we turned it over. We’ve got some things we’ve got to work on.”
“We haven’t had a lot of practice time this year, due to school (starting) so early. But we’ll take this as a learning experience, and make some changes here and there.”
“It’s our job is to coach, and we’re going to coach them to get better.”
Masterson said, “Defense, we had some mess-ups, but it happens. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to work a little harder.”
“I thought we would get the win. I thought it would be hard. We went out there and played our game and we got the win.”
Williams said, “Our kids played hard. (Bluefield) is a great team. I’d imagine Bluefield is going to push pretty deep into the playoffs, so there’s no shame there. You’ve just got to learn from it and move on to the next one. That’s all you can do.”
Coppola said about Graham, for whom he played as a freshman, “They have a strong program. They’ll get pretty far with their schedule. They’re a really good team.”
The G-Men rushed for a net 200 yards and passed for 391.
Reed said about the victory, “It was big, it’s the biggest rivalry in Bluefield. It’s always good to get on the winning side.”
The Beavers will play again at Mitchell Stadium next Friday, taking on county rival Princeton. The G-Men will travel to Tazewell.
— Contact Tom Bone at
tbone@bdtonline.com; Twitter @BDTBone
At Shott Field / Mitchell Stadium
Bluefield (1-0)...........8 21 29 18 — 76
Graham (0-1).............0 21 7 20 — 48
First Quarter
BHS - D.J. Stewart 1 run (Carlos Reed run), 7:59
Second Quarter
GHS - De’Quan Booker 7 pass from Ben Meade (Logan Surface kick), 11:54
BHS - Reed 69 run (Stewart run), 11:34
GHS - Booker 50 pass from Meade (Surface kick), 10:06
BHS - Corey Coppola 27 run (kick failed), 7:41
BHS - Coppola 1 run (Tyler Easley kick), 1:00
GHS - Taymon Cooke 32 pass from Roman Workman (Surface kick), 0:00
Third Quarter
BHS - Coppola 7 run (Easley kick), 9:21
BHS - R.J. Bourne 49 run (kick failed), 7:32
GHS - Dylan Cook 48 run (Surface kick), 6:16
BHS - Stewart 5 run (Jordan Masterson pass from Bourne), 4:15
Fourth Quarter
GHS - Cook 6 run (run failed), 11:28
GHS - Cook 2 run (pass intercepted), 7:00
BHS - Coppola 10 run (run failed), 4:30
GHS - Booker 18 pass from Workman (Jarrod Richmond pass from Workman), 1:08
BHS - Latrell Collier 6 run (no extra point attempted), 0:00
———
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Blfd, Stewart 15-107, Reed 4-173, Bourne 6-119, Coppola 9-131, Masterson 2-6, Collier 3-25. Gra, Meade 6-13, Israel Harris 10-45, Cook 16-140, Booker 2-6, Cooke 1-7, Workman 1-(-6), Team 1-(-2).
PASSING — Blfd, Bourne 1-6-12 yds.-0 TD-0 intc. Gra, Meade 7-8-85-1 TD-0 intc.; Workman 10-14-106-1 TD-0 intc.
RECEIVING — Blfd, Collier 1-12. Gra, Booker 11-127, Dylan Cook 2-9, Taymon Cooke 3-53, Harris 1-2.
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