Last year's Battle of the Woods was played at Ravenwood, where about 5,500 showed up to watch the rivalry game with Brentwood.

 
Brentwood's Crawford coached in every game, Ravenwood's Rietveld makes debut in series 

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Ravenwood's new football coach Joe Rietveld is making his first appearance in the Battle of the Woods on Friday, but Brentwood 10th-year coach Ron Crawford has been a part of the rivalry since the series began in 2003.

Crawford, who took over at BHS when Jack Daniels started the Ravenwood program after the 2001 season, remembers that first meeting well. The Bruins, fresh off a Class 5A state championship in 2002, triumphed 45-6 in the most lopsided score in the series.

Battle of the Woods Brentwood leads series with Ravenwood 5-3 regular season, 6-4 counting playoffs (* denotes postseason). 2003 – BHS 45, RHS 6 2004 – RHS 27, BHS 17             *BHS 30 RHS 27 (Class 5A 2nd round) 2005 – RHS 14, BHS 7             *RHS 17, BHS 6 (Class 5A quarterfinals) 2006 – BHS 19, RHS 16 2007 – BHS 7, RHS 6 2008 – RHS 17, BHS 14 2009 – BHS 35, RHS 7 2010 – BHS 28, RHS 7

QBs somewhat similar, but Radford took unique route BHS sells advance tickets; 3 other Battles of Woods  From 2010 files: How the trophy, name came about

"Well, they didn't have any seniors, and we had a pretty good football team. I remember that their kids played very, very hard. We were impressed with some of their young kids," Crawford said.

"The biggest thing I remember is toward the end of the game we had a significant lead, and Jack Daniels was the AD and head coach over there and his son Reagan was a sophomore running back for us. We got him in for several carries (against his dad's team). Reagan ended up being a captain of our team."

Crawford also clearly recalls the first time the Bruins lost to Ravenwood -- the very next year.

"Their first senior class, we went over there undefeated and they beat us (27-17), and we did not play with the type of character and sportsmanship that I would have wanted," the BHS coach said. "We were able to after that weekend clear up on some things on our football team. And actually that thing probably propelled into the quarterfinals that year, because it was an extreme motivator for our players and we started doing things right after that game."

Crawford said the series got "racheted up" after '04-'05 when the Raptors took a 2-1 regular season lead and 3-2 with two playoffs matchups. Although the new kid on the block, Ravenwood also won its own state championship in 2005 under now-Centennial coach Brian Rector (and went back to the state finals in '06).

"The whole rivalry got racheted up because they got so good so quick," Crawford said. "And I think that's what really made it a rivalry very, very quickly."

But what matters to the Brentwood coach is not that that it's a rivalry but that it's a district game for his Bruins (2-2, 0-1 in 11-AAA).

"I don't think it's any more pressure than any other district game," Crawford said. "What is significant about this one is we're 0-1 in the district ... It wouldn't matter who our opponent is at this point, it's a district game. Just because it's that, it'll add to the excitement and the crowd."

Ravenwood, meanwhile, has a winning record at 2-1, 1-0 in the district -- despite an opening rout by Battle Ground Academy. The Raptors only won three games over and one district matchup last season.

"I've heard that it's an important game," said Rietveld, hired from Indiana. "There will be a lot of people there. I'm hoping for a well-fought, competitive football game."

Rietveld, however, told his players not to get involved in pre-game rivalry banter.

"I told them when we got off the bus last Friday night: 'Don't text your buddies from Brentwood. Don't go online and post stuff. Don't waste any time and energy on things that don't matter with the game, because we need every ounce of energy and every second of time to prepare for Brentwood because they're a doggone football team.' "

Cheerleaders hold banner for Bruins to run through last season.

The coaches have been busy during rivalry week not just on the football field. Rietveld, Crawford and Daniels (now the county schools' athletic director) did a TV show together Tuesday together, and the BHS and RHS coaches attended a Brentwood Rotary Club breakfast Wednesday. Rietveld also did a Chalk Talk on Wednesday night with Red Zone booster club members.

Ravenwood, trailing in the series by two games, has only won once in the past five years -- 19-16 in Rector's final season of '08 before leaving for a college assistant job. The previous year in 2007, BHS rallied to win 7-6 -- the closest game between the schools.

"We started 0-3, everybody hated our team and hated our coaches and we all were terrible," Crawford said. "And we needed something good to happen for our football team in the worst, worst way. We went over there and really battled a good football and threw a touchdown pass late in the game to win."

BHS has won the last two games by big margins. Here's a look at Friday's 7:30 p.m. matchup (Crawford's advice to fans, by the way: "Get here. Get here early."):

When Brentwood has the ball

Brentwood operates from the spread option and Crawford said it'll be interesting to see how Rietveld and the mostly new Ravenwood coaching staff defend against the scheme.

Chudi Echetebu carries the ball for BHS in last season's win over RHS.

Senior Chudi Echetebu has gained 375 yards rushing on 76 carries with 5 touchdowns, plus has 40 yards receiving.

Quarterback Austin Winfree is the team's second-leading rusher with 138 yards on 30 carries. Slot back Austin Sanders has 85 yards on 18 carries with 1 TD, and leads the team in receiving yardage with 74 on 5 catches.

Kyle Burke, expected back this week, has 71 yards receiving on five catches.

"If you don't stop the fullback, then they're going to feed that monster all day. He can rack up the yards, and he's a good football player," Rietveld said. "Then they've got other guys that compliment him. I think they've got a receiver back this week and I'm sure their passing game will step up and improve. But we've got to be able to stop the run and then limit the big plays on passes."

Nick Contini, meanwhile, has become "an unexpected leader" on the offensive line for the Bruins, who lost a lot of starters off last year's three-time district championship team.

"He's an undersized offensive lineman that's done a lot of good things in our program," Crawford said. "We've moved him around a lot, and he's filled whatever role we've asked him to. He's a guy I'm extremely proud of."

Ravenwood's run defense was tough against Cane Ridge in last week's 24-21 win. And it's not just the mammoth RHS offensive line that has size either.

"I'm definitely pleased with our run defense," Rietveld said. "... I know that we did a pretty good job holding a very good rushing football team to not a lot of yardage. It seems like they had a couple of plays where they bounced to the outside. But besides that, it was tough running."

The defensive line keeps the pressure on the offense, with several players able to make big plays. Defensive lineman Anthony Jones leads the Raptors with 13 tackles, two for losses, and a sack. Adarius Davis has four tackles for loss along with two quarterback sacks.

Cam Brown and Hunter Dickerson each have two tackles for loss plus a sack, and Alex Blackburn has a sack and one TFL.  Defensive backs Grant Jones and Vincent Swann have made 11 and 10 tackles, respectively, while Jared Facer has an interception and Johnathon Layne has 8 tackles.

When Ravenwood has the ball

Rietveld says his team will need to work on staying balanced offensively. "We've got to ... have confidence that we can throw and run the ball whenever we want."

Omar Joseph, right, is the Raptors' leading rusher.

Omar Joseph leads the rushing attack with 169 yards on 34 attempts (a 5.0 average), 1 TD and no fumbles. Ryan Butler has 29 carries for 129 yards (4.4 average) and 3 TDs. And big offensive linemen such as Kyle Bolstad and Hunter Judson help open up lanes for them.

Tevin Hill has 11 receptions for 156 yards, good for a 14.2-yard average per catch, plus a TD.  Jaylen McGriff has 8 catches for 75 yards (9.4 average) and 2 scores.

"I see a team that's improving," Crawford said. "Obviously they were behind the 8-ball because Coach got hired so late. But you see a team that's improving very, very rapidly. They're extremely big, so we hope we can just hang in there on defense and block them a little bit on offense."

RHS kicker Thomas Dawson is 3-for-3 on field goals with a long of 47, but special teams saw two extra-point kicks blocked in the win over Hillsboro.

Ravenwood is being outscored 72-56, but has 446 rushing yards to opponents' 300 and 37 first down to its foes 27. The Raptors, however, have had four passes picked off and 130 yards in penalties.

Brentwood's defensive line has also been a real strength for the team, and Rietveld noted they run a scheme similar to BGA's.

"I hope that's not a bad sign for us," Rietveld said. "The three guys inside are all seniors, they're all strong and athletic. They're not 300-pounders but they're 200-pounders that can move and they're tough. Then, the two inside linebackers are really good football players also.

"They can come at you from a lot of different directions so we have to be able to adjust at the line of scrimmage and then adjust from series to series."

Adam Thetford leads the Bruins with 40 tackles plus an interception returned for a score, and defensive lineman Nicholas Coffey and linebacker Carson O'Neal have 30 stops each. Coffey and fellow D-lineman Demetrics Brown (29 tackles) have 1.5 sacks apiece, and Sam Mullaney has posted three sacks and a pick.