‘D’ is back in Damascus as Hornets blank Springbrook

Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006

The Damascus defense had a mission for its Homecoming football game Friday night against Springbrook — to wash out the bitterness of a bad month.

In its previous three games, the Swarmin’ Hornets had allowed 11 touchdowns and 87 points. But they cleansed their souls (if not their uniforms) on a rain-soaked field Friday, limiting a strong running attack to a minimal output in a 19-0 win.

‘‘We’d given up a lot of points in our games before this one, so we made it one of our focuses in the week’s practices,” coach Dan Makosy said. ‘‘Our goal going in was to shut them down and to get the shutout. We accomplished what we were trying to do.”

In the month of October, the Hornets (7-1 overall, 5-0 in the county’s 4A East Division) had seen two long winning streaks come to an end thanks to a late barrage of points against Quince Orchard. Then, two weeks later, they had to rally from a 17-0 deficit against Sherwood, before stealing a 35-32 win in a shootout.

Friday’s Homecoming game was like a return to the early part of the schedule. Damascus had opened the year with back-to-back shutout wins over Watkins Mill and Whitman, and held inter-county rival Linganore to a single score. Against the Blue Devils (5-3 overall, 4-2 in the 4A East), Damascus returned to those roots.

The Hornets held in check one of the area’s top running backs, Springbrook senior Adou Kouadio. Coming in, Kouadio was averaging 122 rushing yards per game and had scored 10 touchdowns. By night’s end, he had managed just 69 yards on 31 carries. The Blue Devils tried to give him room to run from the start, but ended up punting after three downs on their first drive. That became the routine.

Damascus junior safety J.K. Floyd said Springbrook couldn’t find room through junior defensive tackle Tony Edwards, around defensive ends Jamal Currica and Nick Bonturi, or between linebackers Tommy Whalen and Josh Francis.

‘‘The conditions helped us out,” Floyd said. ‘‘The wet field ... It was a ground game, and our D-line and the ends wouldn’t let anything past them.”

The Damascus defense had to rise to the occasion because, early on, Springbrook was doing the same. The Blue Devils forced the first three Damascus possessions to end on a pair of punts and a failed fourth-down conversion.

‘‘I’m proud of the effort that our players put in out there,” Springbrook coach Rob Wendel said. ‘‘We played right with them, but we just made some mistakes and didn’t tackle a couple of times. They got a couple of big plays out of that.”

The solid defense was negated by the fact that Springbrook’s offense produced nothing, on the ground or through the air. The Hornets’ secondary refused any attempts at a passing game. Late in the second quarter — with Damascus ahead 7-0 on junior quarterback Kyle Frazier’ s 34-yard heave to tight end Bonturi — Floyd intercepted a pass from quarterback Phoenix Butler-Poole, jumping in front of the intended receiver at midfield, and giving his offense good field position.

With just over half of the field to travel, Damascus took full advantage. By that point, the offense had found some formula for moving it in the trenches. From the 24-yard line, Frazier (7 of 13, 101 yards, 1 TD) handed off to junior running back Evan Zedler, who broke loose and went all the way for a 13-0 lead.

Zedler finished with 149 yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries. His second score came in the third quarter, on a 2-yard pop over the goal line.

The Hornets’ solution when they had the ball, it turned out, was throwing early and often. Once Frazier starting hitting his receivers, he forced the opponents to compensate. Zedler said that is what the offense is designed to do.

‘‘We can run, we can throw,” he said. ‘‘Early on, they loaded all of their players into the box. When a team does everything to try and stop our running game, then we’ll just make the adjustment. We had to do that in those conditions.”

Notes: In the fourth quarter, an ambulance drove on the track behind the Springbrook bench to tend to junior linebacker Darius Hill. Wendel said Hill may have suffered a concussion. If Hill is sidelined, that won’t help Springbrook against Richard Montgomery (5-3) and Watkins Mill (2-6, but with three of those losses by forfeit) as the Blue Devils attempt to edge into the 4A North Region playoff picture.