I watched the entirety of last Friday’s East Bay-Strawberry Crest game from both the sideline and the press box, and I still can’t get a feel for what the Indians are capable of.
As much as it wasn’t a great game for the Indians — given the box score, I know how strange that sounds — it was just worse for Crest.
East Bay reminded me a little of my Buffalo Bills: a team with several playmakers talented enough to take over a game on their own, should everything go well, but slowed down by more dumb, off-ball penalties than any team should get in two games. Had the opponent been a team heading into this game with more momentum than Crest, I’d imagine the outcome would have been much different.
Don’t get me wrong here: there were several things that Crest did well. The defense held East Bay’s offense to nearly the same scoring output that the Chargers had, save for some successful extra point attempts and a field goal. East Bay had to rely almost exclusively on getting off the big play to get a touchdown, and only a couple were successful.
And, except for some penalties of its own, it was a pretty good game for the Chargers offense. Crest opted to air it out more often than East Bay, and Tate Whatley completed 13 of 26 pass attempts for 208 yards and two touchdowns. Running back Bryce Blackmon picked up 99 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries, making up most of the Chargers’ 121 yards on the ground. If not for a lost second-quarter fumble, deep in East Bay territory, the offense likely could have gotten another touchdown.
At that point, you have a 31-26 game at minimum. Should Crest have gone for two and converted, a field goal could have tied the game at 31. But these are the breaks.
One thing I can tell Crest needed to improve upon in practice this week was its special teams play. And that’s solely from watching the opening kickoff of the second half, in which East Bay playmaker K.J. Sails nearly lost the ball but then recovered and ran it back for a touchdown.
I can’t say much about Sails recovering the ball in time to make a run, as there weren’t really any red jerseys near him to make that play, but I do have to say that everything afterward was preventable. Sails’ running path must have looked like something from a Family Circus comic, before streaking up the Crest sideline for six points. There were no less than five times where a finished tackle could have brought him down and forced East Bay to drive from their own territory.
I know firsthand that Crest fans weren’t pleased with the game, especially with the way the team had been playing prior to this week. But did this game come with the same vibes of doom and gloom I picked up in games earlier this season? I’d say no, because this one simply came down to East Bay having more big-time playmakers. The Indians have four guys who can mess you up at any time, and they usually tend to do it when your defense is keying on one or two of them. It’s really hard to prepare for that, especially when your team hasn’t been in the “wins” column lately.
It was the last time we’ll cover a Crest game this season, so I think we should end this column on a good note: Crest’s next two games (at Bloomingdale, at Gaither) are on the road, but their opponents have a combined two wins all season. Both belong to Gaither, Crest’s Nov. 6 opponent. It’s not unreasonable, in my opinion, to say that the Chargers could end 2015 with at least one win down that stretch.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.