Laurens – Jolly Doolittle’s first season as the head football coach at Laurens Academy certainly hasn’t begun the way he envisioned. The Crusaders, who play 8-man football in SCISA, are off to a 0-2 start.
Doolittle is maintaining an even keel in working with his players, who are still adjusting to him. Laurens lost to the Augusta Eagles of Martinez, Georgia, 20-14 on August 18 to open the season. That was followed by a 54-14 loss to Richard Winn Academy on August 25.
Doolittle is keeping things in perspective.
“Our goal was to improve, to make progress from Week Zero to Week 1,” Doolittle said. “That’s what we did. The outcome of the game was no indicator of that.”
In the road game against Augusta, freshman quarterback Ethan Collins completed 7 of 18 passes for 106 yards and one touchdown. Junior Garrett Murphy had four catches for 89 yards and the TD grab. Senior Buddy Baker had four catches for 55 yards and a TD catch as well
Senior Jared Williard also played quarterback, completing 1 of 7 passes for 38 yards and a TD. He rushed for 46 yards on 13 carries.
Murphy led the defense with 14 tackles, 3 ½ tackles for loss, two quarterback sacks, a fumble recovery and a caused fumble. Baker had nine tackles and three TFLs, while junior Hack Hardy had seven tackles and three TFLs and sophomore Garrison Vaughan had nine tackles and 2 ½ tackles for loss.
Hardy had two sacks, Vaughan caused and recovered a fumble, and Baker caused a fumble.
Against RWA, Collins played the entire game at QB. He completed 8 of 14 passes for 64 yards and ran three times for eight yards. Willard had seven carries for 17 yards and a touchdown and had three catches for 16 yards. Murphy had five carries for 28 yards and caught two passes for 28 yards, while Baker had 40 yards rushing on 12 carries and caught three passes for 20 yards.
Murphy had another solid defensive performance, returning a fumble for a touchdown and recording four tackles, a sack and two TFLs. Sophomore Nathan Bell has four tackles and 2 ½ TFLs.
Doolittle has nothing but praise for his players.
“They’re tough kids, smart kids,” he said. “I certainly think the guys have given great effort. We do think we're going to get a lot better. There's not a single area, Week 0 to Week 1, where we didn’t improve. We’ve got some guys who are going to be really good football players.”
Handling the offensive line chores are Hardy at center with Vaughan and juniors Jay Riddle and Anthony Candelas alternating at the guards.
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