The Bruce Trojans locked up a playoff spot with a 36-22 home win over J.Z. George last Thursday.
The Trojans, 4-6 overall, will travel to East Webster this Friday to close out the regular season and then open the playoffs the following week at East Union.
The playoffs were in question early as JZ opened a 6-0 lead before the Trojans found their rhythm in the second quarter.
“I think we just woke up finally, playing on Thursday night, then being teenagers. It’s a hard adjustment for some of them,” Coach Clint Faust said. “Once we woke up and started playing I thought we were good. If we had held on to the ball it would have been a lot worse than it was.”
The Trojans put the ball on the ground several times.
“We definitely have to do a better job with that,” Faust said.
Amari Armstrong played the entire game at quarterback.
“He’s progressed so much and we’ve been injured so much it kept us from being able to do what we wanted to do – ground and pound with a fullback and tailback,” Faust said. “Amari gives us that run threat back there and he throws it OK.”
Defensively, Justice Hampton led the team in tackles and more.
“The last two weeks he has showed up and showed out,” Faust said. “He has a great motor and is hard to block.”
“He definitely created a spark for us against JZ,” Faust said.
The Trojans now look to capture the momentum from this win and build off it the rest of the year.
“This win helps us build a little bit as a program. We’ve talked about getting more winning characteristics put into the program and getting rid of the losing characteristics,” Faust said. “Our next step is to make a run. I told them I’m tired of winning a handful of games and just getting to the playoffs. Let’s go make a run and take that next step. Let’s not wait until next year.”
That will require upsetting the Urchins at Blue Springs in two weeks.
“They’re a good ball club and good offensively, but people have been scoring some points on them,” Faust said. “We have to play good defense. That’s been hard for us with all our injuries. Losing Zack (Marter) and Jace (Tutor), our linebacking corps is really thin. If you look on our defensive line everybody is either in a club or taped up. We’re just so banged up, but that’s probably everybody this time of year. We’re just banged up at the wrong spots, spots we’re not very deep at.”