BEECH GROVE
Greenwood Christian football coach Andre Dobson had an ambitious four-year plan.
Win a state title.
If the Cougars can play like they did Friday night, perhaps they could contend for one.
GCA didn’t punt the ball nor give up any turnovers while using two Clarksville turnovers to its advantage, running and passing their way to a 51-14 win at their home-away-from-home Beech Grove Middle School.
The win improved the Cougars’ record to 5-2, tying a school record for wins in their short three-year history of playing high school football.
Last year, Greenwood Christian was 5-4, but ineligible for the IHSAA playoffs. This season, the team is eligible and hungry, but first things first.
“I have very high expectations,” Dobson said. “We’re trying to get there and still building. Are we there? Absolutely not, but that’s our goal and we’re pushing as hard as we can. Building in small steps.”
This game was in big steps, though. After surrendering 85 points the past two games, the Cougars were facing a team with an anemic offense at 4.7 points a game. Not surprisingly, the Cougars were stingy on defense, and forced two first-quarter fumbles, one recovered by Dan Honeycutt, the other by Kevin Glerke.
Both led to scores, and the rout was on — but GCA wasn’t merciless.
“We’re putting up points and doing what we need to do,” Dobson said. “I’m happy with that.”
Greenwood Christian put up 30 first-quarter points, with Trey Dobson scoring the first on a 41-yard punt return for a touchdown.
The first fumble set the Cougars up at the Generals’ 47-yard line; four plays later, Trey Dobson hit Isaiah Johnson for a 6-yard touchdown. The second fumble, also in General territory, saw the Cougars again use four plays, but this time senior Evan McIntire scored from the 10 for the first of his three touchdowns.
In under six minutes, Greenwood Christian had a 23-0 lead.
Trey Dobson finished out the first-quarter scoring on an 8-yard keeper. McIntire scored on runs of 2 and 7 yards in the second quarter.
Sandwiched in between McIntire’s scores was a 7-yard TD scamper from Clarksville’s Brody Yates.
Greenwood Christian scored just once more when Trey Dobson threw to Honeycutt, who scampered in for a 31-yard score.
Yates scored once more for the Generals late in the fourth on a running clock to give Clarksville (0-7) its second two-touchdown game of the year.
McIntire had a season-high 89 yards rushing, while Trey Dobson was 8 for 11 passing for 132 yards and two touchdowns, giving him 16 for the year.
Honeycutt had two catches for 63 yards to go with his fumble recovery.
In addition to the fumble recoveries, Greenwood Christian’s defense did have two sacks for losses of 21 yards.
“We’re really trying to pick things up on our defensive end of things,” coach Dobson said. “We made some personal changes and moved people into different spots, and it seemed to work for us.”
If there was any problem for the Cougars, it was penalties; GCA had nine for 65 yards, including four false starts.
“I don’t know. We’ve done a couple things in our practices where anytime any of that kind of stuff goes on in practice the whole team is running. We’re trying to fix it, but we’re still doing it,” coach Dobson said. “We tried to keep our focus. We knew that coming in we would have a good shot at doing what we wanted, yet we wanted to make sure we didn’t let down.”
Week 8 sees the Cougars make their longest trek of the season when they visit Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian for a rare Saturday afternoon game (Oct. 12 at noon) before returning to Beech Grove for its final “home” game of the regular season against Shortridge.
“We’re excited to continue playing and get ready for the playoffs,” coach Dobson said.
