CHHS defeats Pike County

Published 9:00 am Sunday, August 23, 2009

For many of the people in attendance at Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium Saturday night, halftime may have brought a sense of déj vu.

Just like 2008, the Charles Henderson Trojans led the Pike County Bulldogs 35-0 at the half.

Unfortunately for Pike County, however, there would be no 20-point second half this time, as CHHS preserved the shutout and even added a few points to make the final score 38-0.

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Pike County seemed overmatched from the outset, as Charles Henderson took the opening drive of the game 75 yards in 10 plays for a touchdown. K.D. Edenfield capped the drive with an eight-yard touchdown pass to Stanley McGhee to go up 6-0 with 7:08 remaining in the first half.

Pike County went three-and-out on its first possession, giving the ball back to the Trojans.

The Trojans would score again, going 56 yards in eight plays. The big play of the drive was a third-down conversion on an Edenfield pass to Jawara White that went fro 23 yards and put Charles Henderson at the PCHS 31 yard line.

Edenfield finished off the drive with a six-yard touchdown run.

White ran in the two-point conversion to put CHHS up 14-0, and the Trojans never looked back.

“I was really proud of our offense in the first half because our offensive line is so young,” said CHHS head coach Hugh Fountain. “They came out and got after it and threw their body around. I was a little disappointed at halftime because some of them were getting off the line slow, but they were throwing their weight around. They were wearing them out, and I knew they were going to be tired in the second half. We just got the ball distributed to the playmakers. Both of our running backs played well. We threw the ball well. We ran and threw the ball and were balanced on offense, and I was very pleasantly surprised that we were able to do that.”

The star of the game was undoubtedly Edenfield, who accounted for four of the Trojans’ five touchdowns. Edenfield threw another touchdown pass on a beautifully thrown fade route to Jabari Brown that went for 33 yards and a score. He also added a second touchdown run, scoring from three yards out after Zac Wilson intercepted Pike County quarterback Josh Parker to set Charles Henderson up with good field position.

“He’s a balanced player,” Fountain said. “We’re fortunate to have a kid like him because he knows how to run the offense. He’s a good player. What can be said? He’s accurate throwing the ball and he’s good running the ball. He just did a good job for us tonight. He showed up and played well, like you expect him to do as a senior.”

Edenfield went 9-12 through the air, throwing for 117 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran the ball 10 times for 42 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

“I like when the coaches trust me with the ball,” Edenfield said. “The line blocked wonderfully. There was no pressure the whole game. They just pancaked everybody.”

While excitement levels were high on the Charles Henderson sidelines after the game, the disappointment from the Bulldogs was equally as high.

“We’ve got some offensive line things that we’ve got to get straight up front,” said PCHS head coach Eddie Stephenson. “We’ve done some things in practice, but then we get out here in the game and we couldn’t block their front. It was the same front we knew they were going to use. They’ve got some good players. I’m not sure we could block it if we wanted to. The biggest thing we’ve got to get done is improving our fundamentals. Tonight, we weren’t fundamentally sound, and that’s how you get beat 38-0.”

The game marked the debut of Stephenson’s hybrid-wing T offense at Pike County, and the offensive production reflected that. The Bulldogs gained just 127 yards of total offense against the stingy Trojan defense.

“It’s a preseason jamboree,” Stephenson said. “This is our first competition against anybody with a new system. We saw a lot of mistakes we made, but Charles Henderson did a good job. They were prepared. They’re a better football team than we are at this time. A lot of our problems probably had something to do with them, but we’ve got some things that we’ve got to fix in order to be a good football team. But, it’s preseason. We’re not worried about it.”

Fountain was proud of his defense’s efforts.

“Our defense got after it,” Fountain said. “They ran to the ball well, and we came up with some big plays. We told them coming into the game that if we didn’t turn the ball over, we would win the game.”

Stephenson said his team learned a lot from the 38-0 loss, and that it would help both the players and the coaches as the season goes along.

“It looked like we cramped up a lot of the time,” Stephenson said. “That’s something we can fix as coaches. We need to do a lot more conditioning, and we will. We’ve done a bunch already, but it looks like it’s not enough for this group. That’s what preseason games are for. You try to figure out who you are, who you can count on and how they fit in your schemes. We don’t even know if some of these players will be in the same position come this time next week, so it was good for us. I’d like to have won it, but in the same manner, all of this is going to be positive for us because we can take the mistakes, fix them, find the personnel we want and go from there.”

Pike County will open regular season play next Friday night at 7 p.m. against Carroll at Bulldog Stadium, while Charles Henderson will hit the road for a key match up with Greenville.

Click here for photos from the game.