The Strawberry Crest Chargers headed to Leto on Friday where they came away with the 26-12 win, finishing the season with a 5-5 record.
“These guys have gone through a lot,” said head coach Phillip Prior following the win. “For years they’ve been around school, around the community, telling them that they can’t do and that they’re not any good, all of that, and here they are winning [more games than they have in a long time.] And we talked about that throughout the season, that’s what we wanted to do. Get to two, get to three, get to four, we got a forfeit win this week from Armwood and got to five.”
In unquestionably their most successful season since going 7-5 in 2013, Crest finished the year with wins over Spoto, Freedom, Brandon and Leto. In a late-season twist, Armwood had three of their wins retroactively vacated earlier in the week due to an ineligible player, with one of those victories coming over the Chargers on Sep. 17. Adding in the forfeit victory, 2021 becomes just the third season in their 13-season history to finish the year .500 or better, going 7-5 in 2013 as previously mentioned and 5-5 in 2010.
Strawberry Crest took the opening kickoff but were quickly forced to punt. A short punt, a short return and a facemask penalty added onto the end of the play set Leto up inside the Crest 20-yard line to start their first drive. A few plays later, quarterback Christopher Rodriguez was forced out of the pocket but found room to run on the right side of the play, getting into the end zone and giving Leto and early 6-0 lead.
Crest moved across midfield on their next drive but ultimately stalled out. On fourth down, the Chargers ran a fake punt with direct snap to defensive lineman Brock Craig, but couldn’t convert. On the first play of Leto’s ensuing drive, defensive lineman Quintin Walker got to Rodriguez in the backfield, forced the strip sack and Crest took over in the Leto red zone.
A couple of strong runs from quarterback Coby Burger is all it took to reach the end zone, put Crest on the board and give the Chargers a 7-6 lead.
While it was expected before the season that the Chargers would use a rotation in their backfield, both at the running back and quarterback positions, Burger took over as the primary signal caller midseason. And although his passing stats were meager, totaling just 72 passing yards on the season, Burger’s ability to make plays on the ground opened up a new dimension for Crest’s offense. Burger led the team with 358 rushing yards and six touchdowns on 82 carries, even hauling in a 25-yard reception against Leto.
“He helps us from the standpoint of running the football,” said Prior. “When you add that quarterback run game to the mix, it makes it more difficult on defense and he’s one of the fastest guys on our team so we have to figure out ways to get him the ball and he made a big difference. Those last three games where we put up our most points, he was back there for us and he had a lot to do with that on the ground.”
With time winding down in the first half, the Chargers got a fourth down stop deep in Leto territory and took over right on the edge of the red zone but were quickly facing a third-and-11. Jordan Lewis, a mid-season addition to the football team and a multi-sport athlete at Crest, came in at quarterback. He found running back Ryan Weems out of the backfield on a screen pass and Weems fought his way up to the 10 yard line for a first and goal. After pushing up to the Leto three yard line, Weems took the toss to the left and scored to give the Chargers a 13-6 lead with seconds remaining in the half.
In addition to his touchdown, Weems hauled in an interception and nearly had another late in the fourth quarter.
A staple on both sides of the ball for the Chargers this year, Weems finished the year just behind Burger with 354 yards and four touchdowns on 51 carries.
Leto moved up near midfield on their first drive of the second when Craig chased down the ball carrier on fourth down and made a great tackle on the edge to get the ball back for the Chargers at midfield.
After pushing up to the 22, running back Devin Blunt broke free up the middle for the long touchdown run but it was called back for holding, keeping Crest off the board but only for the time being. Blunt followed up the negated score with a gain of 10 on the next play and a 15-yard touchdown run two plays later.
The third-leading rusher on the team, Blunt carried much of the load in Crest’s backfield against Leto as he finished the game with 71 yards and his first touchdown of the season on nine of the Chargers’ 39 carries.
As the rain came down in the fourth quarter, both teams were able to find the end zone one more time to run the clock down on Strawberry Crest’s 26-12 season-ending victory and one of their best individual seasons in school history.
“It’s night and day,” said Prior about how different this season felt. “But we still have a long way to go. There were games that we wanted to be more competitive in, where we were competitive at times. We still have to make that next jump in our program but we took that first step this year, starting to win football games. But it means a great deal when your kids show up and have opportunities to win. They come out to practice and they’re more engaged and all of those different things, so winning cures a lot. We got that part, now we’ve got to take the next step next year.”