This is the new Phoenix Brophy football team. It’s no longer about throwing the ball around the field with a veteran quarterback and wide receivers. It hasn’t been for six weeks.
The antithesis of yester-year was evident everywhere during the Broncos’ 7-0 victory against Chandler Basha on Friday night: Grind it out on the ground and have the defense do the rest.
The Broncos took advantage of a fumbled exchanged and used one “stretch” play with Max Leonesio for a 25-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.
That was it.
The night belonged to defense, and neither side relented.
Brophy (4-3) held Basha to three first downs all night. Two of those three came late in the fourth quarter, after the Bears put on a defensive highlight of their own after they overcame a controversial penalty (Brophy appeared to have a false start on third down, but Basha was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct) to stuff the Broncos on fourth-and-goal at the 1-foot line with eight minutes remaining.
“We played a great game,” Basha coach Tim McBurney said of his defense.
It still wasn’t enough. Basha spent the game trapped near their goal line, and couldn’t move Brophy’s vaunted front seven, even though the Broncos are without key starters Adam Holzmeister and Brandon Bayardi.
The Broncos’ Matthew Berkley had interceptions on Basha’s first and final drives of the game. In between was a reversal of last week’s game against Gilbert Mesquite, as quarterback Michael Benjamin had nowhere to throw (3 of 9 for 21 yards) and Will Still had nowhere to run (45 yards on 15 carries).
“(Defensive coordinator) Gary Galante and his staff have done a heck of a job all season,” Broncos coach Scooter Molander said.
The Bears (4-2) held Brophy one final time with less than a minute remaining, but Berkley picked off Benjamin’s long-distance heave on the drive’s first play.
Though Leonesio (30 carries for 135 yards) was a workhorse in the fourth quarter, this figured to be a showcase of playoff teams offering pointers on how not to give up points, and it didn’t disappoint.
But the Bears know you’ll never win a game by scoring zero.
“We couldn’t get any rhythm going,” McBurney said. “We have to get some things adjusted and solved to eliminate our lack of production.”
