By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
The football gods may have made new Captain Shreve head football coach Adam Kirby wait an extra day to pick up his first win, but the Gators didn’t waste any time beginning the celebration.
After a 38-7 triumph over Loyola in a game that was played Thursday and Friday at Lee Hedges Stadium, the Shreve players doused their coach with the water bucket before he had even made it to the handshake line.
It may have taken almost 21 hours to play the game, but it was all worth it for Kirby.
“It was crazy,” Kirby said. “All the credit goes to our kids and our coaches and battling through the adversity. We came back the second day and held them to no points and our offense really clicked.”
Loyola won the first four minutes of the game Thursday night, but it was all Shreve for the next 44 on Friday afternoon.
“We knew that wasn’t us (Thursday),” Kirby said. “We didn’t bring the energy last night like we should have. I was really proud of how we bounced back and played with that energy.”
The Flyers brought a 7-0 lead into Day 2 – brought about by a weather delay from the previous night – and looked like they got the break they needed when Robert Pavlick recovered a fumble on Shreve’s first drive of the afternoon.
Loyola picked up a couple of first downs after that and made it to the Shreve 35, but couldn’t get any closer.
It wasn’t until the second quarter that the Gators began to take control of the game and never looked back.
Jayden Edwards capped a 10-play, 59-yard drive to put Shreve on the board with a 5-yard run with 7:52 to go before halftime. It was his first touchdown, but it wouldn’t be his last.
It was still 7-7 when Edwards ran it in from 32 yards out on a fourth-and-one option play to put the Gators ahead 14-7, which was the score at halftime.
The Gators came out strong with the second-half kickoff, going 61 yards in nine plays as Edwards scored again, this time from nine yards out.
Quarterback Kenyon Terrell (eight yards) and Edwards (five yards) added touchdown runs and John Chance had a 27-yard field goal to go with his five extra points to complete the scoring.
Edwards had 172 yards on 22 carries and four touchdowns. Terrell ran for 82 and passed for 69 (11 of 20).
For the Flyers, it was the story of two different days. They had 80 yards in Thursday’s abbreviated session but only 121 the rest of the way. Five of Loyola’s 11 total first downs came on Thursday’s opening drive.
It didn’t help the Flyers that two of their three starting receivers were knocked out of the game with injuries. Forced to use more than half its starters on both offense and defense, fatigue became an obvious issue as the game went on.
But the Loyola head coach wouldn’t use that as excuse.
“It’s like I tell our kids every week – the toughest team always wins,” said Loyola coach Mike Greene. “We got to get tougher than we are. It’s as simple as that.”
Contact J.J. at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com
Captain Shreve 38, Loyola 7
Score by quarters
Loyola | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – 7
C. Shreve | 0 | 14 | 14 | 10 | – 38
Scoring summary
LCP – Trace Wall 1 run (Evan Lirette kick)
CS – Jayden Edwards 5 run (John Chance kick)
CS – Edwards 32 run (Chance kick)
CS – Edwards 9 run (Chance kick)
CS – Kenyon Terrell 8 run (Chance kick)
CS – Edwards 5 run (Chance kick)
CS – Chance 27 field goal
Individual leaders
Rushing – LCP (39-105), Wall 23-53, Cooper DeFatta 10-22, Jackson Barnes 1-14, Jon Ebarb 2-8, Reagan Coyle 1-7, Brooks Rodgers 1-0, Colby Hamilton 1-1. CS (38-280), Edwards 22-172, Terrell 11-82, Jamarion Otis 5-26.
Passing – LCP (5-22-2-96), DeFatta 5-21-2-96, Hamilton 0-1-0. CS (13-23-0-86), Terrell 11-20-0-69, Brodie Savage 2-3-0-17.
Receiving – LCP, John Carmody Jr. 3-75, Brooks Rodgers 2-21. CS, Marquez Stevenson 5-30, Keaton Flowers 4-35, Edwards 2-1, Cam Wilson 1-15, Otis 1-5.
Photo by KEVIN PICKENS, Journal Sports