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CARROLLTON - Carrollton head football coach Nick Flowers thought that he’d seen everything in high school football.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. That is off the field.
The Carrollton Hawks visited the West Central Cougars on the campus of Winchester High School on homecoming night for the Cougars.
Minutes before the opening kickoff, according to several witnesses, an assistant coach on the West Central coaching staff came over to the Carrollton visitors sideline. He dislodged a green Hawk flag and proceeded to run around midfield and wave it toward the Cougar supporters. He then started to stomp on the flag. Then a mixture of Carrollton supporters and coaches retrieved the flag, while no scuffle of any kind occurred. The coach was reportedly dismissed from the sidelines by West Central head coach Adam Brockhouse.
“As a head coach for this long I’ve seen about everything, but I’ve never seen a coach from the other side come grab a flag, run around the field, throw it down, and stomp on it,” Flowers said. “It was interesting. I know [Brockhouse] was apologetic about it here at the end.”
“We’re not going to behave that way,” Flowers said. “I use that as a good teaching point. I liked the way that we responded from a little bit of disrespect from us.”
After not scoring on their first drive of the game, the Hawks then scored on four consecutive series and cruised to a dominating 40-0 victory over the Cougars.
Carrollton improves to 3-2 and 3-0 in the WIVC South while West Central goes to 2-3 and 1-2.
Witnessing a bizarre pre-game sequence like that only motivated the Hawks, including all-stater and captain Nathan Walker. The senior receiver caught nine passes for 129 yards and three touchdowns.
“They disrespected us,” Walker said. “It wasn’t cool for them to do that. Putting up 40 and shutting them out, that was us disrespecting them a little bit.”
For the third consecutive game, Hunter Flowers put in a solid performance.
The junior quarterback broke his school record he set two weeks ago against Calhoun, for 398 passing yards. He was 28-for-38 through the air, the most completions in his career during a game, and recorded five touchdown passes, tying his career high. Additionally, Flowers gained a new career-high 425 yards and scored six total touchdowns.
“Hunter plays his best when he stays composed,” Nick Flowers said. “As the game wore on we had more and more time back there. I thought offensive line wise we played well. Of course, we’d like to run the football more, but we’re gonna take what they’re giving us and tonight it was throwing the football.”
This was also Walker’s most productive game of the season so far after struggling to get open because he usually gets double-covered. However, in this game, he was able to break loose and time his catches right.
“They were playing some soft coverage, playing off a bit. I was able to hitch up, get inside a little and made them pay with speed sometimes,” Walker said. [Hunter] was on fire. He was hitting his spots and everybody.”
A Hunter Flowers three-yard rushing touchdown put Carrollton up 7-0 with 5:36 remaining in the first quarter. Just over three minutes later, he broke a tackle in the backfield, rolled out of the pocket, and connected with a wide-open Brett Lehr in the back of the end zone to make it 13-0 Hawks.
Walker would come alive in the second quarter.
After getting on the end of a big 31-yard pass play in double-coverage, he capped the drive with a 16-yard touchdown catch. With 3:05 to go in the first half, he caught a five-yard touchdown pass to put Carrollton up 26-0.
With under two minutes to play in the half, Hunter Flowers picked off a pass from Wes Hughes and returned it all the way to the house, but was called back due to a holding penalty. Carrollton would end up coming two yards shy of a touchdown as the first half expired.
The Hawks would continue their aerial assault in the second half.
Flowers hit Walker in the end zone on a jump ball that was good for a 12-yard touchdown. With 6.6 seconds to go in the third, Flowers connected with Lehr again this time on an out-route that saw Lehr wide open downfield for a 30-yard score.
Lehr would finish with a career-high six caught for 106 yards and two touchdowns. Zach Flowers ended up with six receptions for 99 yards.
West Central was coming off a 44-22 victory over North Greene, and their offense was in good form. The Hawks defense was as well and continued their defiance.
Carrollton limited rising freshman fullback Andrew Kauffmann to 44 yards on 13 carries. Overall the Hawks forced three turnovers and held West Central to 89 rushing yards.
“It’s pretty stellar. “It shows we like to get after the ball and rally all the time. Defensive end Nathan Cummins said. “We came into WIVC play wanting to shutout the South. We’d be the third team to do it, but we ended up giving up six to Greenfield. That kinda hurt a little bit, but we came out tonight knowing we’d get the win.”
“I think defensively we got that much better tonight across the board,” Flowers said. “To shut these guys out says a lot about our defense. We’re getting stingier and stingier.”
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