For the Thorndale Bulldog football team, Friday night’s 35-10 win over Holland seemed like a night where almost everything went right according to head coach John Kovar.
“Holland’s program is always top notch and they’d just beaten a really good Hearne team” Kovar said. “I don’t know how many years in a row they have beaten us, but we didn’t harp on that.”
“We just made the big point that this year is different, and we just tried to preach confidence that it was going to happen all week long,” he said. “We prepared and expected to beat them this time.”
At the start of the game, Thorndale’s offense fired away immediately. Just over a min-into the contest, junior quaruteterback Coy Stutts found Clason Beasley open for a 35-yard touchdown pass.
The Bulldog offense was dormant for the remainder of the opening quarter, but struck back immediately in the second quarter, with senior Stryker Leschber scoring on a one-yard run early on and Beasley catching his second touchdown pass of the game with two minutes left in the half to make it 21-0.
However, Holland didn’t leave the first half empty-handed. With four seconds left, receiver Trey Grinnan caught a 16-yard TD pass from Ayden Tomasek. Jose Arziola’s extra point after was good making it 21-7, Thorndale.
The Hornets cut the Bulldog lead to 11 midway through the third when Arziola made a 29-yard field goal .
But it was at this point where the Bulldogs earned their victory.
Less than 30 seconds after the Hornet field goal, Stutts found Beasley open for a third time on an 84-yard touchdown pass. Colton Merryman’s extra point put the Maroon-and-Gold up 28-10.
Thorndale scored once more 10 seconds into the fourth on a goal line run by Stutts to make it 35-10 and allowing his team to hold on and remain undefeated in district play.
This was the first time the Bulldogs have defeated HHS since 2014.
“Every game we’ve lost to them has been close for the most part and a lot of those times, the offense would do good, the defense would do okay but we would have two or three big mistakes on the special teams,” Kovar said. “We weren’t perfect on special teams (Friday), but everything was great.”
Top performers for Thorndale were Beasley, who caught four passes for a total of 157 yards and three touchdowns.
Stutts ended the evening 8 of 17 with a total of 198 yards and three TDs. Stutts was also the team’s leading rusher with 80 yards on 12 carries and one touchdown.
THIS WEEK— Now the ‘Dawgs head to Rosebud-Lott, a rising power in District 12-2A-I that Kovar said didn’t lose many of their players from their 2020 team, and is coming off a 27-14 loss to district favorite Hearne.
They are led by QB Zane Zeinert, who had 1,500 total offensive yards last year.
Zeinert’s top weapons are Jamarquis Johnson, who had 1,527 total yards and Jordan Landrum, who caught 539 yards worth of passes last season.
On defense, the Cougars are led by linebacker John Paul Reyna, who had 85 tackles in 2020.
Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.
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