Chester flexes defensive muscle in win over Glen Mills
THORNBURY >> Chester entered Friday night’s Del Val League tilt against Glen Mills with a bit of a chip on its shoulder because of last season’s double-overtime loss to the Battlin’ Bulls.
Okay, so maybe it was not a chip as much as a boulder, but the Clippers defense had no problem re-directing that anger at the Glen Mills offense as Chester pounded the Bulls, 25-6 in an amazing effort.
The Clippers defense was stout from start to finish and established exactly who would be in control of the game from the outset.
“What I always say is that the games we’ve lost didn’t have anything to do with the way our front seven played,” said Clippers coach Tony Beaty. “D’Andre Dill, Naim Little, and the rest of the guys are really strong up front. Because of our team speed, we’re a tough team to run on. If you look at our statistics, nobody has really ran on us.”
Add Glen Mills to that list.
While both teams spent the early portion of the game trading penalties and punts, the Clippers broke through in a big way when Jaquan Flood exploded through the left side of the field and danced to the end zone for a 25-yard scoring run.
“As soon as I got the ball, I looked for the end zone,” Flood said of the gaping hole he saw in front of him.
Flood was far from done, however. In the second quarter Flood hauled in an acrobatic deep ball from quarterback Jamir Green where he tipped the ball beyond a defender, gathered it in, and sprinted the rest of the way to the end zone and a 13-0 Clippers lead.
“It was high-pressure,” said Flood. “At first I didn’t see the ball, so I had to try and make a play by tapping the ball in the air and catching it. This is a big win for us because last year they stole our Del Val championship form us.”
While Flood was the early contributor for Chester (2-4, 2-0), several other Clippers played a big part in wearing down the Glen Mills defense.
Anthony Sterling racked up 92 yards on the ground and scored a touchdown, while Ed Nelson Jr. had 56 yards rushing, and Green had 25 yards rushing and the game-sealing touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
“We just try to use all of the weapons we have on offense and we have a lot of them,” Beaty said. “We try to keep the defense off-balance. We just want to keep improving each week and add more offensive schemes and plays to our playbook to utilize all of our weapons and team speed.”
Glen Mills (1-5, 0-2) tried to make a game of it after halftime when Keon Rantin hauled in the second-half kickoff and raced 88 yards to the end zone to cut the Chester lead to 13-6. The Battlin’ Bulls, however, would not get any closer thanks to the staunch Clippers defense.
The Chester defense was simply dominant. Led by Dill, the Clippers defense used its superior strength and team speed to swarm the Glen Mills offense.
Chester limited the Battlin’ Bulls to just 99 yards of total offense and four first downs. To put the Clippers effort into perspective, Glen Mills tallied 37 yards on a fake punt run by Quadir Gibson in the third quarter and was essentially stifled for the rest of the game.
The Battlin’ Bulls, who feature two quality running backs, a good quarterback, and two potent receivers, simply had no answers offensively.
While a number of Clippers defenders stood out, including the aforementioned front four, and Nelson Jr., linebacker Devon Freeman was yet another terror for the Bulls to deal with.
“We were able to execute by sticking to the fundamentals,” said Freeman. “I can’t do it myself without the front four, which is Naim Little, D’Andre Dill, Umar (Degraphenreed), and Amaru (Muhammad). Mainly we executed and were able to read and react. I believe in this entire team. We take pride in C-Pride.”
