By Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
At 8:30 a.m. last Friday, Brownstown Central High School Athletic Director Mark DeHart gave football head coach Reed May a heads up that Eastern was dealing with contact tracing.
By 9:30 a.m., the Braves’ road game that night was officially called off.
May knew of two teams that also had their games canceled that night due to the another team’s COVID-19 issues — Mitchell and Madison — so DeHart called those schools to see if they could set anything up.
Madison’s athletic director told DeHart they might be able to make it work, so May checked with his assistants first.
“We’re thinking, ‘Do we really want to scramble and get a game Friday night or not?’” May said. “My coaches wanted to play.”
By 10:30 a.m., the game was on. Brownstown would be taking its bus east instead of west.
They exchanged film with Madison that morning and tried to come up with a game plan on such short notice. May usually takes the players’ cellphones during bus rides on Fridays, but he let them keep it last Friday to watch film on the Cubs.
Both teams didn’t have much time for preparation, which is why it wound up being such a “high-scoring, fun game for the fans,” May said.
Brownstown came away with a 49-35 victory, improving its record to 3-0 on the season.
May was pleased with how his team was able to handle the adversity of the ongoing changes from Friday and still grind out a W.
Not to mention the Braves were also shorthanded on Friday. They had 19 players quarantined and only had 28 players available to play at Madison.
“I was very proud of them,” May said. “All week, we’re practicing shorthanded. We’re going no pads, going slowly, making sure everyone is healthy. Then all week, we’re preparing for Eastern. Then all of a sudden, that changes, so I was proud of them for that. We were ahead, they came back and took the lead, then we came back and won the game. The kids did a great job handling adversity and playing well.”
Junior quarterback Carson Darlage had his best game of the season, throwing for two touchdowns and running for three more.
Darlage ended with 103 yards on the ground and 131 yards in the air, including TD throws of 61 yards to Eli Lane and 50 yards to Kiernan Tiemeyer.
“They were so concerned with taking away our run game that we hit them with two big bombs early in the game,” May said. “That’s what people do. They get all concerned about stopping the run and then you get play-action opportunities, but you’ve got to complete them, and Carson was able to get those completions. Carson had a great game for us.”
As Brownstown prepares for its upcoming game Friday at home against Salem, the good news for the Braves is they got everybody to return from quarantine on Tuesday.
Salem is 1-0 this season with a 38-0 victory Aug. 20 against North Harrison. COVID-19 issues have kept the Lions out of action the last two weeks.
Salem, along with Silver Creek, were the two favorites in the Mid-Southern Conference heading into the season.
The Lions scored a victory over the Braves last season, which was the first time in 15 years they had defeated Brownstown. Second year head coach Blair Thompson, who used to coach with May at Brownstown, is 8-3 overall as the Lions head coach so far.
“They’re loaded. They’ve got eight senior starters on offense and I think nine senior starters on defense,” May said. “They’re a tough team. Even before the COVID hit them, we knew this game was going to be a tough game.”
With Brownstown back at full strength, May expects a big crowd come Friday night, and he thinks Salem’s fans will travel well, too.
Opening kickoff will be at 7 p.m. for these two conference foes.
“It’s going to be electric here come Friday night,” May said.