RHS opens the Rietveld era; BA tries to get in win column
By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Brentwood and Smyrna high schools both have a lot of different players from last year’s football teams that met on the field twice – including a one-sided first-round playoff game. But Bruins Coach Ron Crawford hopes his team has a vivid memory of the 2010 season-ender in this year’s home-opener at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“I hope we're motivated by the embarrassment – I was embarrassed, I think our team was embarrassed and it has nothing do with the scoreboard,” Crawford said. “It's more about our effort and the way we played.

“We want to go into this year's game and feel like we give ourselves a chance about playing hard regardless of the outcome. Just don't look at the scoreboard, play hard the entire game. It's almost like we need to get our pride back vs. Smyrna.”

BHS head coach Ron Crawford believes his team needs to get its pride back against Smyrna, last year's state 6A runner-up.

While BHS (1-0) is coming off an opening victory at Cookeville last Thursday, Smyrna (0-1) dropped its first game 29-26 in OT against visiting Battle Ground Academy – ironically, Ravenwood’s opening opponent tonight.

Crawford still expects the Bulldogs to be similar, with a lot of speed, athleticism, and size on both defensive and offensive lines.

“Even though they had a great, great senior class last year, this group of seniors has played a lot of football as well,” the BHS coach said. “So they’re a pretty veteran team, really solid at just about every spot, and have really, really good team speed.”

The Bruins, with new quarterback Austin Winfree running the option attack, planned to scale back the gameplan on offense this week to what the team can do best. Winfree was only 2 of 6 passing for 6 yards, but ran five times for 49 yards and had no turnovers.

“We're still a really young football team,” Crawford said. “I think after Tuesday's practice we figured out we gotta keep scaling back and we've got to find things that we can execute and that we're comfortable with where we get all 11 guys doing the same thing.”

BHS converted 8 of 15 third downs, all on the ground, and gained 208 yards rushing. Senior Chudi Echetebu carried the ball for 96 yards and 2 TDs.

On defense, linebacker Adam Thetford had 12 tackles and returned an interception for a score last week. Austin Sanders also had an 88-yard interception return.

Smyrna, which fell behind BGA 10-0 but tied it at halftime, came back from a 23-10 deficit in the fourth quarter on Joe Shelton's 4-yard run and 11-yard pass.

The Bruins didn’t have any injuries from the first game, and Hayden Young is still sidelined and William Witherspoon is out for the season. Senior kicker Matt England is fighting an injury that keeps him on place-kicks only, with punter Ryan Ault continuing with kickoff duties.

“We're going to kick it off at 7:30 Friday night in the home opener,” Crawford said. “We're excited.”

Ravenwood (0-0) at Battle Ground Academy (1-0), 7 p.m.

The Raptors and new head coach Joe Rietveld caught somewhat of a break by the team not having a game scheduled for last week’s “Week 0” opening games. Rietveld wasn’t hired until April after Tom Shuman’s replacement named in January resigned for personal reasons.  

RHS makes its debut under head coach Joe Rietveld.

“We’re fresh and fairly healthy and I don’t know about them. But they’ve got a game under their belts,” Rietveld said. He said if there were definitive advantages or disadvantages then everybody would play either in Week 0 or in Week 1.

“We were definitely behind the 8-ball since April, and the extra week came in handy for us,” the RHS coach said.

After practicing last Friday, Rietveld and his coaching staff actually scouted the Wildcats at the BGA-Smyrna game won by BGA in overtime. He noted that Battle Ground Academy would know about what adjustments to make on their team from having played a game.

BGA is well-coached, plays hard, has experience top to bottom and has 5-6 really talented players but utilize all their players well, Rietveld said. Former Vanderbilt player Roc Batten is the Wildcats' new coach.

Raptors lineman Anthony Jones and the rest of the defense will have their hands full with BGA quarterback C.J. Beathard, an Ole Miss recruit. Against Smyrna Beathard ran for a TD and threw for another, while Kennan Bass ran for two scores including the winning 3-yard jaunt in OT.

The Raptors, meanwhile, just named senior Harrison Johnson as their new starting quarterback on Wednesday night, and Rietveld says John Overton and Andrew Radford may also get a chance to play. (Click here for story).

RHS has size along the O-line, especially with Hunter Judson and Kyle Bolstad up front. Several wide receivers will also rotate for playing time in the game.

Rietveld also believes the kicking game is strong with Thomas Dawson and Michael Giangreco. RHS planned to make final decisions on their assignments Thursday. It may even be split along the lines of long and short field goals, the RHS coach said.

 “We’ve had a couple of weeks to prepare, we’re mentally ready but I’m not sure we’re ready to play at the pace they’re playing,” Rietveld said.

Brentwood Academy (0-1) at Maplewood (1-0), 7 p.m.

BA has such a hard time scheduling non-region games that the Eagles had to schedule national powerhouse Louisville (Ky.) Trinity last week – an opening lopsided loss.

Junior QB Max Staver will make his second start for BA.

“The bad news is the possibility that you get beat like we got beat; the good news is it brings clarity so you know exactly what you have and what you don't have,” Potter said.

Brentwood Academy now will play its first game against Maplewood during Coach Ralph Potter’s five-year tenure.

“They've got a really good running back, a very impressive young man,” Potter said. “He's a good player and they’re a very athletic team.

“But right now to be honest with you we're very concerned about us. We're just trying to get us better in terms of conditioning and fundamentals and intensity.”

Maplewood running back LeDarrius Vanleer rolled up 275 yards and 2 TDs on 27 carries as the Panthers (1-0) shut out Hunters Lane last week. Da'Ronta Nelson also averaged 15.7 yards on 3 carries, with a TD run.

BA's only touchdown last week was a run by D'Montre Wade to tie it 7-7 in the second quarter. The Eagles defense, meanwhile, gave up 198 yards passing.

Potter was pleased with the play of junior quarterback Max Staver in his first start, after getting the nod over classmate Nick Givens. Staver was 10-of-20 passing for 83 yards and an interception.

“I think our quarterback made some good decisions,” the BA coach said. “He threw the ball well  and ran the ball well, so we're encouraged with that part of it. We did some good things, and there were some bright spots there that we can build on.”