STRASBURG – Strasburg played better in the second half, but it wasn’t enough on Friday night.
The Rams fell to Broadway 28-20 in a home non-district football game, after falling behind by 14 points in the first half.
“I think they had a good plan for us,” Strasburg head football coach Tripp Lamb said. “We didn’t execute when it came down to it. They played really hard tonight. They wanted it more than us. Hats off to them. …When they needed plays, they made them, and we didn’t.”
Things couldn’t have started off much better for the Rams as they scored on their first drive. Strasburg went 66 yards on six plays. Strasburg junior running back Quincy Williams was able to get to the outside and went 49 yards down the right sideline to the Broadway 1. On the next play Strasburg senior quarterback Brayden Hough took it in for the touchdown and gave the Rams a 7-0 lead with 9:08 left in the opening quarter.
The majority of the rest of the first half was all Broadway.
The Gobblers quickly tied the game on the next possession. Broadway senior wide receiver Uriah Rutan took a handoff and ran 44 yards for a score to tie the game at 7-7 with 8:44 left in the opening quarter.
Broadway took the lead for good on its next possession. The Gobblers needed only four plays to take the lead. Broadway sophomore quarterback Brenden Glovier ran 54 yards for a touchdown and gave the Gobblers a 14-7 lead with 5:06 left in the first quarter.
After its first drive, Strasburg managed only 39 yards of offense the rest of the half.
“I think that we came out hot, like we didn’t do last week (against Skyline), and we did what we needed to do on that first drive,” Strasburg senior running back/defensive back Brady Knight said. “After that we got too happy with ourselves, and we let them come back. We should’ve went pedal to the ground, but we didn’t.”
The Gobblers extended their lead in the second quarter. Broadway went 63 yards on eight plays. Glovier connected with Rennick Billmeyer for a 2-yard touchdown pass and a 21-7 lead with 8:10 left in the opening half.
Strasburg had an opportunity to score right before the half, but a penalty on the Rams wiped a big gain and they ran out of time inside the Broadway 30.
The Rams had a stronger second half. They outgained the Gobblers 158-84, with most of Broadway’s offense coming on one play late in the game.
“We just cleaned some things up,” Lamb said of Strasburg’s second half. “We just came out flat again in the first half. That’s been something the past two weeks that’s really plagued us. So we’re going to have to do a little bit better job with that. And our tackling in space really killed us again. We’re going to get back to work.”
After forcing a Broadway punt to start the second half, the Rams put together a solid drive. They went 81 yards on 13 plays with Williams scoring on a 14-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 21-14 with 1:51 left in the third quarter.
Strasburg’s defense stepped up again on the next Broadway drive and blocked a punt and took over at the Strasburg 47 on the second play of the fourth quarter.
Once again the Rams put together an impressive drive going 53 yards on 10 plays. They also converted two big third downs on the drive.
Facing a third-and-11 from the Broadway 39, Hough kept the ball on a quarterback keeper and scampered 18 yards to the Broadway 21.
Strasburg then faced a third-and-4 from the Broadway 15, Knight ran up the middle for seven yards to the Broadway 8. Two plays later, Knight scored on a 2-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 21-20 with 5:10 left.
“That whole drive we just emphasized being more physical and that was it,” Knight said. “That was all I had in my mind. …It was just being more physical, getting downhill.”
The Rams went for a 2-point conversion, but Knight was stopped a yard short of the end zone to keep the Gobblers in front.
Rutan, is known as the Gobblers’ biggest offensive threat, especially at wide receiver. Entering the next drive, he had no receptions for Broadway. However, that changed quickly as he took a pass from Glovier and went 67 yards down the sideline for a touchdown and a 28-20 lead with 3:36 left in the game.
“They’ve got some skill guys out there on the edge,” Lamb said. “(Rutan), he’s pretty slippery. So he busted two long ones on us there. He was passing anybody we have, and he made us pay.”
The Rams put together one final drive. They moved the ball 29 yards, but on fourth-and-7 from the Broadway 34 an incomplete pass sealed the victory for the Gobblers.
Williams led the Rams with 105 rushing yards on 17 carries, and Knight had 85 rushing yards on 16 carries. Broadway was led by Glovier with 107 rushing yards on eight carries and 121 yards through the air on 6-for-10 passing. Rutan had one catch for 67 yards, and two carries for 49 yards.
Strasburg (1-1) hosts Warren County next week.
“This is going to help us get back to attacking the process that we’re used to,” Lamb said. “I think maybe that we’ve gotten away from that a little bit. So this will be a wake-up call. Everything we’ve ever wanted is still right in front of us. So it’s going to be a little bit of a wake-up call, but we’re ready for it.”