The Columbia Academy Cougars saved their best game of the year for the first round of the playoffs Friday night in a 40-12 road win over Clinton Christian Academy.
The No. 9-seeded Cougars (3-7) dominated the No. 8 Warriors (5-6) in every facet of the game from start to finish, and CA head coach Randy Butler said it started in practice last week.
“We played our best game so far this season. The main thing is you take a look at the type of practices we had last week. We had three really good days. I think you can attribute it to that and our players playing with confidence,” he said. “The conditions weren’t ideal. The field was in bad shape. The dressing conditions were horrible — there was only room for four or five guys to dress at one time. But they put all that behind them and really played well.”
No. 1 Riverfield Academy (10-0) is up next for CA in Rayville, La., Friday night, but the Cougars have been in this position before. Two years ago the Cougars were coming off a dominant first-round win over Wayne Academy and traveling to Rayville for the second round against the Raiders, who were 10-1. Despite being heavy underdogs, Columbia Academy beat Riverfield 38-26 Nov. 3, 2017, to get within one game of the state championship.
Butler said that Riverfield coach Boyd Cole told him that when the Cougars upset the Raiders two years ago that he thought his team had a real good shot at winning state that year. Butler added that he knows the game two years ago will have zero effect on Friday’s matchup, however, and that any overconfidence the Cougars could have gained in their win over Clinton will go away when the players watch the Raiders on film.
To beat the Raiders again, Butler said the Cougars will need to play as close to error free as they can, and they can’t afford a lot of penalties like they had against Clinton.
“They remind me a lot of Simpson with their physicality in the run game and on defense,” he said. “They’re a big, rugged, physical football team on both sides of the ball. They’re a power running team. They give you quite a few different formations. They give you some tackle over and some unbalanced sets. They run the power, the toss, the trap, and they take their spot. They don’t throw it a lot, but they’re effective when they do because they run the football so well.”
With a win over Riverfield, the Cougars would play either No. 4 Lee Academy or No. 5 North Delta School in the Class 4A semifinals.
The Cougars got rolling early on their first drive against Clinton, marching down the field with ease and punctuating the drive with a beautiful throw-and-catch from Ras Pace to Robert Johnson. Johnson had a great release off the line and sold the cornerback on an inside route before planting his foot and exploding outside to create separation on a fade, and Pace put it where only Johnson could get it for the 15-yard touchdown.
Columbia Academy stuffed Clinton’s first drive and went up two scores on a Riles Stuart rushing touchdown. After another defensive stop, the Cougars added to their lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by Pace to make it 20-0.
Freshman Holdyn Sandifer got in on the action, intercepting Clinton’s Dylan Mitchell to set up another Pace 1-yard touchdown that increased the CA lead to 26-0 with less than a minute to go in the first half. However, Mitchell got the Cougars back with a 60-yard touchdown pass to Darrius Scott just before intermission to trim the deficit to 26-6.
The ground game for the Cougars ate nearly five minutes off the clock to open the third quarter, and Patrick Gill capped off the physical drive with a 4-yard touchdown. Clinton’s Keiwon Rodgers answered, though, with a 10-yard rushing touchdown and made it 32-12 going into the fourth quarter.
There would be no comeback in the cards for the Warriors, though, as Gill rushed for second touchdown of the night from 3 yards out to give the Cougars a comfortable 40-12 advantage.
The Cougars hit several big plays in the passing game throughout, but it was CA’s dominance in the trenches that proved to be the difference maker. Stuart, Gill, Pace and Preston Sauls each had at least 55 yards on the ground and combined for 303 yards and nearly seven yards per carry. Defensively, the Cougars had 11 tackles for loss and four hurries.
“When you combine those two things (6.6 yards per carry and 11 tackles for loss) together, you’re probably going to have a pretty good night,” Butler said. “That’s really big.”
In preparation for their game Oct. 25 against Oak Forest Academy, which was played in a downpour, the Cougars installed the I-formation into their playbook to help protect the ball. The coaching staff decided to keep it in and mix it with CA’s usual spread attack against Clinton, and it paid big dividends.
“If you can do just a few things out of a lot of different sets, it makes a difference,” Butler said. “But it comes back to being physical up front, getting a hat on a hat and moving your feet.”
The Cougars secondary was also rather dominant with seven pass breakups and two picks. Sandifer and Kris Ginn each had an interception, and Pace and Ginn both had two pass breakups.
