Saturday, September 13, 1997
Cooper 42, Wichita Falls Rider 20By LANCE FLEMING / Abilene Reporter-News
WICHITA FALLS -- The fifth-ranked Cooper Cougars got a mild scare -- and a big lesson -- from Wichita Falls Rider on Friday night.
The mild scare came in the form of Cooper's surprisingly tough 42-20 win over the Raiders in front of 7,000 fans at Memorial Stadium.
The lesson?
That teams play just a little bit harder against state-ranked opponents.
"We expect that people will come after us," CHS quarterback Brandon Stover said. "We've got to be ready to play every week, and I think we learned that tonight. We played another state-ranked team last week (Garland) in a big game, so it was a little hard to get up for this one. But we fought through that in the second half."
The Cougars had to do so because they continued their early season trend of giving the ball away. They had four more turnovers Friday night and the Raiders scored 13 of their 20 points off those giveaways.
The biggest turnover of the game came with 1:24 left in the first half when Stover was stripped of the ball and Simon James picked it up and rumbled 31 yards for a touchdown to cut Cooper's halftime lead to 21-17.
Cooper had dominated play up until that point but had just a four-point lead to show for it.
"We gave them a lot of stuff," CHS head coach Randy Allen said. "But Rider played well and played with a lot of emotion. I guess every team has an allotment of turnovers, and I think we've used all ours up (nine) in the first two games."
The Raiders made it a 21-20 game early in the third quarter when Kyle Avey kicked a 33-yard field goal after a Robbie Johnson fumble.
But that would be all for the Raiders, who were stuffed from that point on.
And the Cooper offense -- which rang up an impressive 477 yards and 25 first downs -- began pounding on the outmanned Raiders.
Leading 21-20, Cooper marched 76 yards on seven plays to a 7-yard scoring pass from Brandon Stover to Jesse Sharp to make it a 28-20 game. Robbie Johnson -- who impressed with 205 yards on 20 carries -- had runs of 11 and 18 yards in the drive.
The score would remain 28-20 until early in the fourth quarter when Peter Abrigg picked off a Patrick Gill fourth-down pass and returned it 68 yards for the touchdown that clinched the game for the Cougars.
On its last touchdown drive, Cooper went almost exclusively to the ground as Johnson ripped off a 35-yard run on a 60-yard drive that ended when Stover plunged in from the 1-yard line to make it 42-20 with 4:19 to play.
Those plays turned the Cougars from a group in a collective foul mood at the half into a jovial bunch after the game.
"We knew that if we played well we would come out on top," said Stover, who threw for 200 yards and one score. "We made some mistakes and gave them some points, and that had us all a little bit upset at halftime. But we fought through all the bad things that happened in the first half and came out with the win."
After taking the 22-point lead, Cooper's only concern was the health of defensive tackle Kevin Stevenson, safety Josh Button and running back Richard Rodriquez. Stevenson left the game in the fourth quarter with a left ankle injury, Rodriquez had a hip pointer and Button an ankle injury.
Stevenson and the defense were especially dominant in the first half when they held the Raiders to minus-9 yards of total offense for the first 16:55 of the game. Rider, in fact, didn't get its initial first down of the game until Avey caught an 18-yard pass from Patrick Gill with 7:05 left in the first half.
Gill, who was sacked seven times on the night, was sacked four times in the first half. The Cooper defensive, which held Garland to 132 yards last week, held the Raiders to 142 yards Friday night.
Cooper struggled early as Richard Rodriquez fumbled the opening kickoff, leading to a Rider field goal. The Cougars then marched down the field, but Abrigg missed a 30-yard field goal attempt with 7:10 left in the first quarter.
The Cougars got clicking, though, on their second possession when they went 63 yards on just three plays and scored on Johnson's 44-yard touchdown run. After being stopped on downs on the next possession, the Cougars took their fourth possession and used just four plays to move 31 yards to a Roy Strahan 1-yard touchdown run. The key play in the drive was a 36-yard third-down pass from Stover to Mark Rau that took the ball to the 1-yard line.
Gill was sacked by Stevenson on the Raiders' next possession and he fumbled, giving the Cougars the ball at the Rider 27-yard line. They wasted little time, scoring in three plays on a 15-yard TD run by Rodriquez.
At 21-3 with 7:12 left in the half, the Cougars appeared to have things in hand.
But the Raiders went 80 yards for a touchdown on their next possession to make it 21-9, and then Stover fumbled on the next play and James returned it to make it 21-17 at the half.
The Cougars, however, regrouped at halftime and put the Raiders away in the second half.
"We racked up a lot of yards again, we're just not putting it in the end zone," Allen said. "We've got things to work on still. But I'm proud of the way we sealed the game in the second half.
"We were all frustrated at halftime and I think we all wanted to replay the first half," he said. "But all you can do in that situation is encourage each other and go out and play like you're capable of playing. We played a really good second half of football. I'm really proud of the way the guys hung together and came through this one."
Cooper 7 14 7 14-- 42
Rider 3 14 3 0-- 20
SCORING SUMMARY
Rider -- Kyle Avey 20 field goal.
CHS -- Robbie Johnson 44 run (Peter Abrigg kick).
CHS -- Roy Strahan 1 run (Abrigg kick).
CHS -- Richard Rodriquez 15 run (Abrigg kick).
Rider -- Patrick Gill 1 run (kick failed).
Rider -- Simon James 31 fumble return (Gill pass to Michael Wagoner).
Rider -- Avey 33 field goal
CHS -- Jesse Sharp 7 pass from Brandon Stover (Abrigg kick).
CHS -- Abrigg 68 interception return (Abrigg kick).
CHS -- Stover 1 run (Abrigg kick).
Cooper Rider
First downs 25 9
Rushes-yards 36-277 36-21
Passing yards 200 121
Comp-Att-Int 15-28-1 8-16-1
Punts 0-0 7-31.3
Fumbles-lost 3-3 1-1
Penalties-yards 4-33 3-20
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING -- Cooper: Robbie Johnson 20-205, Richard Rodriquez 9-87, Brandon Stover 2-(-6), Mark Rau 1-(-6), Roy Strahan 1-1, Bryan Devore 2-(-1), Dowell Loggins 1-(-3). Rider: Dwight Brosan 20-53, Derek Jones 7-7, Patrick Gill 9-(-39).
PASSING -- Cooper: Stover 15-27-1, 200 yards; Loggins 0-1. Rider: Gill 8-16-1, 121 yards.
RECEIVING -- Cooper: Rau 6-92, Jesse Sharp 4-61, Andy Rodgers 2-39, Luke Harrison 1-5, Robbie Johnson 1-6, Anthony Rozzell 1-(-3). Rider: Michael Wagoner 2-57, Derek Jones 2-35, Kile Avey 2-18, Shane Szymanski 1-11.