GREENFIELD - The Carrollton Hawks are not known for their defensive output.
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However, in their past two games, they’ve been physically dominating. It’s also what head coach Nick Flowers predicted that the defense would take some time to gel early in the season.
Carrollton’s defense was lights out last night in a 34-6 victory over the previously undefeated Greenfield-Northwestern Tigers at Fleur de Lis Field on Friday night in Greenfield.
The Hawks now ease back to .500 at 2-2 and improve to 2-0 in the WIVC South while the Tigers move to 3-1 and 1-1 in conference play.
“We felt defensively we were bringing it, playing physical and flying to the ball,” Carrollton head coach Nick Flowers said. “Several weeks ago I said it’s going to take a few weeks to get the defense ready to go. We just can’t give our defense the look in practice that we want to, and I hate to start the season that way, but we had to get experience out in on the field defensively. I was happy the defense played the way they did.”
The Hawks have improved a lot upon their first two games of the season against Triopia and Beardstown. They limited super sophomore running back Denver Davenport to 19 yards with 16 on the ground. Other running back Dyland Pohlman collected 40 yards on 12 carries. Sophomore quarterback Jacob Lansaw was 9-for-19 through the air with 128 yards and got picked off by Isaac Cox. Overall Carrollton held Greenfield-NW to 157 total yards.
“We were just rallying to the ball,” Carrollton linemen Jacob Decker said. “The
[defensive] line kept their gaps, and we got them. Having to start off the season [the way we did] prepared us.”
The Hawks also picked up from where they left off last week offensively.
Quarterback Hunter Flowers found the end zone five times with four passing touchdowns and an additional rushing touchdown. His completion rate was sporadic though going 12-for-32 but still managed 296 yards. Overall he gained 348 total yards.
Both teams traded possessions in the first quarter before the Hawks had a third down and long at their 19-yard line. Flowers took the snap, rolled to his right, switched directions, dodged and broke away from multiple tacklers, and heaved a pass near the Carrollton sideline at midfield. Star receiver Nathan Walker was there to haul it in and then ran 50 yards to the house for an improbable 81-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring at 8-0 with 2:35 left in the opening frame.
“Whenever you don’t complete plays and tackle through people then [Carrollton has] the athleticism to go ahead and make you pay,” Greenfield-Northwestern head coach Joe Pembrook said. “That play stung, but that was just how the tide fell. We can’t make any excuses. They made some big plays tonight. We were not able to do that.”
“It was a flat-out ugly play,” Nick Flowers said with a laugh. “We didn’t quite design it that way, but we’ll take it.”
With six minutes to go in the second quarter, Carrollton forced Greenfield-NW into a punt, and the snap sailed over the punter’s head into the end zone and fell on it for a safety to give the Hawks a 10-0 lead. 21 seconds later, Flowers connected with Byron Holmes over the top for a 40-yard touchdown score that gave Carrollton a 16-0 lead.
The Hawks got the ball back again wasted little time as Flowers threw a screen pass to his cousin Zach Flowers. With good blocking and athleticism, Flowers found the end zone for a 51-yard score, which gave the Hawks a 22-0 lead going into halftime. The junior quarterback racked up 270 passing yards in the first half.
“I think we had the momentum going into the second quarter. We capitalized on it,” Hunter Flowers said. “I liked the way our defense played. We held them out very well.”
Zach collected a career-high seven passes and 139 yards.
Just over three minutes into the second half, on a fourth down and 12 at the Tigers 19-yard line, Walker caught his second and last pass of the game over the middle and scored to put Carrollton up 28-0.
After completing a couple of long passes and getting a new down from a roughing the passer call, Davenport put the Tigers on the board with a 1-yard rushing touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 28-6.
The Hawks responded with a Hunter Flowers 15-yard touchdown run on an option keeper.
“We weren’t physical enough up front to give us time to go ahead and follow through on some of our execution,” Pembrook said. “I don’t fault our kids for lack of effort, but we just gotta go back and look at this and get better on both sides of the football.”
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