Eastern Greene's defense falters against Trojans

Eastern Greene had one of its 'worst performances of the year' on defense as the Thunderbirds came up on the short end of a 42-20 score to visiting Wood Memorial in a Southwest Seven Conference football game at Parkview Middle School in Bedford Friday night.

The Thunderbirds, who slipped to 1-4 overall, 0-4 in the conference, allowed the Trojans a season-high 42 points over the final three quarters.

The Trojans, who came into the game averaging just 7.8 points per game, rushed for 336 yards, including 216 in the second half.

"This was one of the worst performances of the year by our defense," said Eastern Greene coach Jeff Bond. "I was very disappointed in the play our of defense.

"It was all the way across the interior. We all had mistakes at some point in the game. Our tackling was atrocious. We just gave them too many opportunities."

The Thunderbirds had over 330 yards of total offense, but had two fumbles and one interception.

"We had two fumbles in the fourth quarter and our interception came in the second quarter," said Bond. "Offensively if we don't have those turnovers, we could have scored more.

"We moved the ball, but we shot ourselves in the foot."

Quarterback Ben Griffith, who completed 13 of 22 passes for 122 yards, put the T-Birds ahead 6-0 on a 5-yard run in the first quarter.

Miguel Olvera ripped off a 64-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. He finished with 152 yards on 10 rushes.

Griffith threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Bryan Golden in the second half. Griffith, who carried the ball 10 times for 58 yards, then connected with John Costello on the two-point conversion to round out the Eastern Greene scoring.

"When you give up 336 yards rushing, that pretty much is the game in a nutshell," said Bond. "Our offense played well at times and our special teams did a pretty good job.

"But Wood Memorial made a lot of big plays, especially in the second quarter when they took the lead for good with 21 points. They scored on a 21-yard pass, a 30-yard run and a 1-yard run, which was set up by a 39-yard pass play. Big plays absolutely killed us. Later in the game, they pretty much had their way with us on the ground."

Olvera hauled in six passes for 79 yards. Golden caught four for 26 yards. Garrett Sarchet hauled in two for nine and Jake Crites caught one pass for 10.

The Thunderbirds will face North Central at 7:30 p.m. Friday at North Daviess in another conference game.

At Parkview Middle School

Bedford

Wood Memorial 0 21 8 13 -- 42

Eastern Greene 6 6 8 0 -- 20