photo by Marcus Frazier

Ferriday linebacker Julius White tries to get his hands on Block High School’s wide reciever A.J. Calhoun as he carries the ball down field Friday evening.

Bears upset Trojans

By Jeff Edwards (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Saturday, September 13, 2008

FERRIDAY — In his first year as the Block High School football coach, Benny Vault tried to teach his team how to win.

In the first game of his second season at the helm, the Bears took all of his lessons to heart.

Block used a smothering defense and just enough big plays to stun Ferriday, 12-6.

“This is the biggest win in my career,” a jubilant Vault said following the game. “Our kids kept fighting. We’re still trying to learn how to win at Block, and this was a good step in the right direction.”

While it was a great win for Block, it was equally a disappointing and frustrating loss for Ferriday, which went undefeated in the regular season a year ago.

“You’ve got to give coach Vault and his staff a job well done on preparing for us,” Ferriday coach Freddie Harrison said. “We didn’t execute and did not perform at the level we need to perform at. It will be fixed.”

Harrison saw warning signs in his team’s 38-0 win over Madison last week, and spent the week preaching about players who needed to buy into the team concept.

Unfortunately for the Trojans, Harrison’s fears came true on Friday.

“With only seven seniors, five juniors and 14 sophomores, we’re a young team,” Harrison said. “We’re young, but we expect to win football games. Even with all freshmen, we expect to win.”

The main problem for Ferriday was its lack of a running game. The Trojans rushed for just two yards on 28 attempts, including six sacks of quarterback Rodney Lawson.

“It’s hard to coach five guys all working toward the same goal,” Harrison said of his offensive line. “One would take a play off here, we’d have a miscue there and that’s how it went.”

What little scoring their was happened in the third quarter.

After a scoreless first half, Block took the opening kickoff of the second half and marched down the field.

The Bears got a 44-yard run by Hunter Key to put the ball at the 11-yard line and Chris Collins capped off the drive with a 2-yard dive.

Block struck again a few minutes later after a bad snap on a Ferriday punt gave the Bears great field position at the Trojans’ 35-yard line.

VaShawn Davis took advantage, racing 28 yards down the sideline to give the Bears a 12-0 lead with 5:19 left in the third quarter.

However, the Trojans came back quickly thanks to a 52-yard kickoff return by Neico Amado that set Ferriday up at the 33-yard line.

Ferriday struck three plays later when Lawson hit Adrian Garrison down the sideline for a 31-yard score with 3:41 left in the third.

Ferriday had two more chances to tie the game or take the lead, but squandered both of them.

In the final seconds of the third quarter, Lawson hit Garrison for a 23-yard gain to the Block 13-yard line, but Lawson mishandled the snap on the next play and Preston Bowman recovered for Block.

Ferriday had one final chance to pull out a victory in the final minutes of the fourth quarter when yet another long pass to Garrison set the Trojans up at the Bears 18-yard line.

However a holding penalty, an incomplete pass and three consecutive sacks snuffed out any hope of a Ferriday victory.

Block’s win was made even sweeter by the fact that the Bears’ first game of the season, against Vidalia, was canceled by Hurricane Gustav and Friday was their season opener.

“I tried to use that for motivation,” Vault said. “Both of the teams (Vidalia and Ferriday) were from Concordia Parish and since we didn’t win (against Vidalia) let’s try to come over here and take it out on (Ferriday). I tried to use whatever motivation I could find and the kids responded real well.”

While Block will relish their big win for awhile, Ferriday just wants to get on with its season.

“All you can do is recover, go out and play the next football game,” Harrison said. “This game is over and there’s nothing you can do about it. The taste is in your mouth until Friday again when you line up and play another game.”