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September 29, 2006 > Sports > Goodrich’s reverse gives Jones 6-0 victory over Lovett

Goodrich’s reverse gives Jones 6-0 victory over Lovett

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

A trick play proved to be the difference as Jones beat Lovett 6-0 Sunday in the Powderpuff Game of the Week.

The game began on a sour note for Lovett (0-2) when, on Jones’s first snap on offense, junior defensive end Annie Conderacci injured her knee and had to be taken to the hospital. Three plays later, Jones (2-0) had the ball inside Lovett’s 40-yard-line and appeared on its way to a quick score, but senior quarterback Katie Chang lost six yards on a misplayed option toss to force a long third down attempt. On the next play, sophomore linebacker Amanda Lewis intercepted Chang’s overthrown pass and returned it to the Lovett 29.

Lovett head coach Anish Patel, a senior, said his defense struggled to recover quickly from Conderacci’s injury.

“To see one of their good friends go down and have to go to the hospital early in the game just takes the wind and intensity out of you,” Patel said. “They came back out, they came with passion, they came with fire, and it’s really hard to do that when you see a severe injury like that.”

Both Jones and Lovett employed highly pass-oriented schemes in the first half, and neither were very effective: Both quarterbacks overthrew receivers multiple times, even though the wind did not pick up until late in the half. These overthrows proved costly during a bizarre sequence that began late in the first quarter. With just under two minutes remaining and Jones driving near midfield, Chang threw her second interception of the game, this one to sophomore cornerback Jennie Holm. Two plays later, Jones sophomore cornerback Nicole Justice picked off a pass from Lovett senior quarterback Tess Elmore. On the next play , Lewis intercepted her second pass of the game, returning the ball to the Lovett 48. Two plays after Lewis’s interception, Jones senior linebacker Bern Turegano got another interception and advanced to the Jones 45.

Lovett defensive coordinator Nathan Bledsoe, a sophomore and Thresher calendar editor, credited his unit’s pass defense for picking up three first-half interceptions.

“Our defense is trained to believe that when that ball’s in the air it’s their ball, and they’re going to go get it,” Bledsoe said. “Our defensive backs and linebackers were all great in pass coverage. They read things exceptionally well.”

On top of her three picks, Chang completed only one pass in the first half. After the third pick, Jones coach Kendall Spence went with a more conservative gameplan, running up the middle with freshman running back Katie Schnelle or to the outside with junior running back Caitlin Goodrich. Jones’s offensive play stabilized after that decision, but the game was still a scoreless tie at halftime. Spence said he thought his team did not play with enough intensity in the first half.

“They were way too laid back at halftime,” Spence said. “Everybody was too happy. We just though we had [the game] laid up in our hands but the score was still 0-0. One mistake on defense, and they’re up, and, obviously, we had a bit of trouble scoring points on offense.”

Jones started the second half alternating between plays for positive yardage and plays for negative yardage. After losing a yard on a botched snap, Schnelle gained 13 yards on a run up the middle. The next play, she lost a yard trying the same thing, and then Spence decided to employ some trickery, running a reverse to Goodrich that caught Lovett’s defense completely off guard. Taking advantage of Lovett’s over-pursuit on the opposite side of the field, Goodrich ran nearly untouched for a 51-yard touchdown to give Jones a 6-0 lead early in the third.

“We noticed they were pulling hard to whatever side we were running on,” Spence said. “They had a lot of man coverage, so we thought to do a reverse. We hadn’t done it all year.”

Playing with a lead, Jones’s defense completely shut down Lovett’s offense thanks primarily to Goodrich’s play at defensive end. Normally a safety, Jones defensive coach Johnny Hanson decided to insert the speedy Goodrich at defensive end during the game in order to disrupt the timing of Lovett’s offense. The move worked, as Goodrich easily got past Lovett’s offensive line and forced Elmore to rush her throws slightly. She also decided the game at safety, getting an interception inside Jones’s 20 with 30 seconds left in the fourth as Lovett tried to mount a last-minute comeback.

Hanson said having Goodrich play on the defensive line was a gamble, given her small stature.

“It was actually more of a joke in practice to put [Goodrich in] at lineman if we don’t have enough linemen in practice,” Hanson said. “She’s very disruptive because she’s very fast. If you do get a block on her, it’s easy to hold because she’s so much smaller, but she can make you miss and if she does that then she can create a lot of problems.”

This week, Jones will face a Baker (0-2) team that narrowly lost to Hanszen (2-1) by a 12-0 score last Saturday. Lovett will face Will Rice (0-3), which fell 28-6 to Sid (2-0) last week, tomorrow, and its game Sunday against Hanszen has been postponed because of Dale Lloyd’s funeral.

On the surface, it may appear as if Lovett has fallen far from the team that routinely competed for championships up until last season, but junior offensive coordinator Chris Pasich said the record is not indicative of how the team has played so far this year.

“We did play two playoff teams from last year [Wiess and Jones] in the first two weeks of the season,” Pasich said. “When you do that and play them as close as we played them with a bunch of these girls playing their first year of powderpuff, it’s a testament to how hard they work.”

In other games, Martel (2-0) beat Hanszen 25-0 in a very physical contest, and Brown (1-1) upset Wiess (1-1) by a 6-0 score. That game, in which Wiess played without junior running back Natalie Gwilliam due to illness, ended in some controversy. With 25 seconds remaining, Wiess forced Brown into a fourth-down situation and Brown was setting up to punt when the referees signaled the end of the game even though 25 seconds seemingly had not elapsed since the end of the last play.

Next week’s Powderpuff Game of the Week will feature two semifinalists from last year, as Martel takes on Wiess.

Freshman Flag Football

The freshman flag season began Sept. 21 with Jones (1-0) winning 20-7 over Martel (0-1) and Wiess (1-0) shutting out Baker (0-1) by a 30-0 margin in Thursday League action. The Saturday League got underway last Saturday with some much closer games: Lovett (0-1) fell 13-6 to Will Rice (1-0) and Brown (1-0) won 8-0 over Hanszen (0-1)

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