By By MARK ANDERSON / Niles Daily Star
EDWARDSBURG - Friday's Lakeland Conference varsity football game between Edwardsburg and Brandywine seemed like anybody's game - at first.
But 40-0 was posted on the scoreboard by game's end. And the home team, Edwardsburg, was in a celebratory mood.
The Eddies were up just 7-0 at the end of the first quarter, and with 5:49 to go in the first half, Brandywine punted after an unsuccessful offensive effort but recovered the ball when the recipient of that punt fumbled it. However, the Bobcats only netted a couple offensive yards and ended up punting again from their own 20-yard line.
Soon, Edwardsburg's quarterback, 5-11 junior Steve Gowen, had a pass slapped down by Brandywine's sometimes-tenacious defense and the Bobcats regained possession, but they still had a tough time venturing much, if at all, within the Eddies' property lines. Still, it looked like the Bobcats might get some wind in their sails.
But it was not to be.
The Eddies, whose energetic team has just five seniors, put the Bobcats in a pressure cooker and turned up the heat. Not long after a Brandywine fumble was recovered by Edwardsburg's Monty Ort with 2:36 remaining in the half, Gowen lofted a pass to Scott Walker for touchdown number two.
The good extra point put the score at 14-0.
With time dwindling quickly in the first half, Brandywine fumbled on third down with seven yards to go, enabling the Eddies to take over on the Bobcats' 34-yard line. After a nine-yard scamper by Gowen, he connected a pass to Jeff Mortimer for yet another touchdown.
The point-after attempt flew between the uprights. So, Edwardsburg had crammed 14 points into a three-minute box, so to speak, putting the score at 21-0 at the half.
Edwardsburg's resulting momentum carried over into the second half. Some of that momentum was exhibited by Mortimer, who plowed toward the goal line after Edwardburg took over on downs on Brandywine's 44-yard line in third-quarter action. But touchdown honors went to Ben Horton, who hit paydirt from the one-yard line.
Brandywine did manage to block the point-after, putting the score at 27-0.
In fourth-quarter action, the Eddies got two more touchdowns: Anthony Hayes ran one for 24 yards on a reversal, but the extra point failed; and, with 6:42 to go, with the ball at midfield, Corey Parsons of Edwardsburg, a 5-7, 170-pound junior, put the proverbial icing on the cake with a 50-yard touchdown sprint., putting the score at 39-0.
The first point-after attempt failed, but due to a penalty against the Bobcats, Gowen in this dual role tried again and managed to bounce the pigskin through the goalposts, barely making the last point.
Even after 40-0 became a reality, the Eddies kept trying to score via the persistent running skills of Matt Peters, but Brandywine, tackling aggressively, resisted any further onslaught, as Peters was stopped by the Bobcats' J.D. Miller.