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| David W. Smith/Daily News Bowling Green’s Sam Howard (right) gets past Barren County’s Lucas Cook on Friday during the Purples’ 49-0 victory at Barren County High School in Glasgow. Click here for more photos from Friday night football. |
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GLASGOW — The Bowling Green football team locked up the No. 1 seed in Class 5A, District 2 after cruising past host Barren County 49-0 on Friday.
Click here for more photos from Friday night football.
Bowling Green (8-2, 2-1) rebounded from a disappointing performance in its last outing, an 18-10 loss to Warren Central, earning the top seed by virtue of wins over Christian County, Owensboro, Franklin-Simpson and Doss.
“I had some negative things to say to our guys and our staff (after last week’s loss),” BG coach Kevin Wallace said. “The bottom line is … we’re still the same team that beat Christian County. We’re still the same team that beat Owensboro. We’re still the same team that played Trinity within 9-0. We’re still the same team that has an awful lot of good players and good tradition here. I think battling the conditions and the weather and all that stuff tonight - I’m really proud of how we handled business.”
Junior quarterback Chandler Sears finished with 229 yards and five touchdown passes.
“Central was a tough loss for us,” Sears said. “We wanted to bounce back quick, come out strong and get ready for the playoffs.”
A week after failing to get a first down in the second half, the Purples racked up 287 total yards in the first half, including 176 in a 35-point second quarter.
Bowling Green got on the board less than two minutes into the game, using five plays to go 73 yards. LaVance Anderson had 38 yards on the drive, including a 20-yard touchdown run that made it 7-0.
After an interception in the end zone on the next possession, the Purples struck again late in the first quarter.
BGHS used a four-minute, nine-play drive that ended when Sears found Sam Howard open for a 10-yard touchdown strike on the left side of the field.
Sears struck again on the Purples’ first offensive play of the second quarter, finding a wide-open Zack Williams for a 40-yard touchdown pass.
After another three-and-out, Sears connected with Anderson for his third touchdown pass of the half - a 33-yard toss right down the middle that extended the lead to 28-0.
Sears hit his fourth touchdown pass and second of the night to Williams less than four minutes later, making the score 35-0 midway through the second quarter.
The defense got in the act after Michael Bailey recovered a fumble and raced 27 yards for the score.
Sears and Anderson capped the first-half scoring when they connected for another touchdown, a 51-yard catch and run that made it 49-0 at halftime.
“I was pleased with how we handled change,” Wallace said. “We hadn’t seen Barren County run any man coverage. They decided to play us cover zero and blitz a lot against us. We kind of got off our script and changed some things that we really wanted to do.”
That would be all the scoring as field conditions worsened under a steady rain and both teams chose to play a conservative second half. BG had two possessions - both ending in fumbles - while Barren County had three drives that all ended in Trojan territory.
“(Getting a big first-half lead) was exactly what I wanted to do because I didn’t want our guys playing out here on this mess,” Wallace said. “We didn’t want to come out with injuries. We really wanted a short second half, and boy we got it.”
Bowling Green finished with 311 total yards. Anderson had 84 yards receiving and 57 yards rushing.
Barren County (3-7, 0-3) had 96 total yards.
The Purples will now host Hopkinsville on Friday in the opening round of the Class 5A playoffs.
“It’s Hopkinsville,” Wallace said. “We’ve had our run-ins with them in the playoffs. We’ve already watched film on them and we know they are really good - really athletic - defensively. We have to get ourselves ready to play.”
Fourth-seeded Barren County will play at Christian County on Friday.
BGHS 14 35 0 0 - 49
BCHS 0 0 0 0 - 0
First quarter
BGHS - LaVance Anderson 20 run (Zack Williams kick), 10:14
BGHS - Sam Howard 10 pass from Chandler Sears (Williams kick), 0:18
Second quarter
BGHS - Williams 40 pass from Sears (Williams kick), 11:41
BGHS - Anderson 33 pass from Sears (Williams kick), 9:43
BGHS - Williams 14 pass from Sears (Williams kick), 5:45
BGHS - Michael Bailey 27 fumble return (Williams kick), 3:42






