Barnum defeated East Central 20-18 in high school football on Friday night despite four turnovers. The key? The Bombers stayed tough mentally and pulled through with a win.
"We had four turnovers in the game, but we were able to fight back," mentioned Kevin Haley, Bombers coach. "I was very impressed with the composure and the mental toughness our kids had."
Kris Adams, who ran for all three Barnum scores, started the scoring with a 2-yard touchdown jaunt in the first quarter. Adams' touchdown was the only one of the stanza and it was 6-0 Bombers heading into the second quarter.
"Kris is so fast that when he looks like he is going to be caught and tackled he somehow has the break-away speed to turn the corner or beat someone who has an angle on him," stated Haley. "He also has speed from the get-go.
Some kids have long distance speed where it takes them a while to build it up, and others have that initial burst of speed but run out of gas. Kris has speed on both ends."
ADVERTISEMENT
Luke Payne scored on a 2-yard touchdown run for the Eagles in the second and then Shan Korf picked off a Barnum pass and returned it 76 yards for a score to make it 12-6 in favor of E-C entering halftime.
"We battled back throughout the entire second half," explained Haley. "The kids didn't let themselves or their teammates get down when things went bad."
Following halftime things eventually started getting better for the Bombers and then Adams rumbled into the end zone from the 6-yard line in the third quarter to make it 12-12.
Barnum went ahead 20-12 when Adams scored early in the fourth quarter on another 6-yard touchdown run and then they added an Eric Johnson two-point conversion run to go ahead by 8 points.
"Overall, this was one of our best games on offense this season," suggested Haley. "We scored our last touchdown and extra points with about four minutes left to go."
With about two minutes left in regulation the Eagles scored on a Logan McAllister 69-yard touchdown pass to Travis Milton, but Barnum stopped them on the conversion attempt to keep the Bombers in the lead 20-18.
"With about 1:40 left to go East Central had only two time outs remaining, so we had to get a first down to hold the ball and finish the game," remarked Haley. "We ended up having to punt the ball back to them with 45 seconds left and then our defense held up to secure the win."
The Bombers had 277 yards of total offense with Adams contributing 180 yards on 24 carries and that included three touchdowns. Johnson rushed for 65 yards on 15 carries.
ADVERTISEMENT
On defense Kyle Grimm and Josh Hogan each had eight tackles and Jake Waseen had a great defensive game with three pass breakups.
The Bombers are now 4-3 on the season.
