Great teams find a way to win when they don’t play their best game. Dutchtown didn’t look like a state championship contender today, but they showed why they are great as they managed to handle business and win the game anyway.
The Dutchtown Griffins defeated the Denham Springs Yellow Jackets 27-13 in a game where they didn’t manage a consistent level of play because, when a major inflection point came that would wildly shift the direction of the game, Dutchtown always managed to come out on top.
It wasn’t always pretty. In fact, Denham Springs managed to get off to a great start in this game, largely dominating a very short first quarter. Dutchtown had to punt on their first drive, and Denham Springs QB (and GF Bowl Game commit) Jerry Horne Jr was firing on all cylinders to start the game. He seamlessly moved the ball down the field through the air on the first drive, finding Da’sean Golmond on 3rd and goal in the endzone for a TD to give the Yellow Jackets a 6-0 lead (missed PAT). Then, after another Dutchtown punt, he picked up right where he left off on his 2nd drive right until the first quarter ended, a brutal one for the Griffins.
This was the game’s first inflection point – early in the 2nd quarter with Denham Springs up by 6 and in the redzone again, a TD here could send Dutchtown straight into panic mode. Instead, Dutchtown did what a great team does, and found a way out of the situation. Senior DB Thomas Pierce picked off Jerry Horne in the endzone and gave the Griffins a new sign of life and all of the momentum in the game.
All of a sudden, with one play, it was like a switch flipped and Dutchtown was a different team. An offense that could find no rhythm and looked listless in the first quarter suddenly was extremely productive, mostly through the legs of Lekedrin Harvey. The Griffins found success running the ball, and Harvey paid off this newfound offensive momentum with a pair of short TD runs, giving Dutchtown the 14-6 halftime lead.
The switch flipped on defense too. Denham Springs was mostly moving the ball through the air, but after the first two drives, the offense could no longer sustain this one-dimensional success. The Dutchtown front 7 was dominating Denham Springs’ rushing attack, forcing the Yellow Jackets into repeated 3rd and long situations, which led to inconsistency and drives stalling out early. After an initial run production, Denham Springs suddenly felt helpless on offense.
As the 2nd half began, Dutchtown was continuing to hold their 8 point lead and the offensive profile of Denham Springs was becoming increasingly bleak. That is, until the end of the 3rd quarter, where one more play made this a ballgame again. Out of nowhere, Brenton Paul ripped off a huge 40 yard TD run to bring the Yellow Jackets within 2 with a chance to tie up the game with a successful 2pt conversion. A rushing attack that hadn’t found any success all game had suddenly rattled off a game-changing explosive play. Unfortunately for Denham Springs, a huge mental mistake led to a penalty after the TD, which made the 2pt try practically impossible, and required Denham Springs to just kick the PAT and make it a 1 point game.
Now Dutchtown, a great team who had slowly fallen asleep at the wheel in the 3rd quarter, needed to wake up again and get themselves out of this suddenly sticky situation. They did so with a long, sustained TD drive, capped off by Dylan Champagne throwing a TD pass to Rylan Mayeux to make the score 21-13 with 8 minutes left. This put the pressure right back on Denham Springs’ offense, as the big play was significantly more difficult to replicate than the drive that Dutchtown had just put together.
Denham Springs didn’t find a big play, but they did find a long drive of their own. Over the next 4 minutes, they slowly worked their way into the redzone, which led to the final key inflection point of the game. 4th and 3 within the Dutchtown 20 yard line down by 8, with 4 minutes to go, Head Coach Brett Beard made the surprising decision to attempt a field goal to cut the lead to 5. The idea (presumably) was to get a stop (that they probably would have needed after a game tying TD drive anyway) and get the ball back. If they can do that, instead of only threatening to tie the game, now they have a chance to threaten to win it. It’s a risky decision in a difficult situation, but it can work out and pay dividends for the team. Unfortunately for Coach Beard and the Yellow Jackets, this decision instead blew up in their face immediately.
One of the potential hiccups with this plan was kind of simple: who was to say that a high school kicker that already missed a PAT (and looked pretty shaky on the other one) was going to hit the field goal in the first place? This was exactly what happened when the field goal was blocked by Dutchtown, keeping the deficit at 8 and giving the Griffins the ball again, a brutal blow to Denham Springs. Then, just a few plays later, Lekedrin Harvey slammed the door shut with an long TD run to bring us to the game’s final score, 27-13 (the hold on the ensuing PAT got botched).
This was Harvey’s 3rd TD run of the game, giving an exciting conclusion to a very impressive performance. After a slow start, he was the engine that got this offense moving via chunk plays on the ground. His combination of size and speed made him difficult to catch and difficult to bring down, and it slowly wore on the Denham Springs defense throughout the game.
For a Dutchtown team that hadn’t played much stiff competition, this was a huge confidence boost and marquee victory. They play in an extremely difficult playoff bracket, but this was the sort of win the Griffins needed to get themselves to the table of real state championship contenders. There will be another big test for Dutchtown next week as they go on the road to face Walker, the only team that beat them in the regular season last year. It’s a tough loss for Denham Springs, but they will get the chance to bounce back next week when they go back on the road to play Prairieville.
