GARDEN CITY – It was almost just as Tony Glazer had scripted it – aside from a late wayward punt snap – for the Liberty County Panthers.
The Panthers took a commanding 36-point lead at halftime and cruised to a comfortable 43-6 win over winless Groves on Friday night, running their record to 7-1 on the season and 6-1 in Region 3-AAA.
“We executed pretty well,” Glazer said. “The defense was flying around and hitting. The offense was doing pretty much having its way with it wanted to do. I was happy with the effort.”
Elijah Brown, given the entire second half off, scored four touchdowns in the first half. He capped the Panthers’ opening possession with a 20-yard run and scored on a 13-yard run with 58 seconds left in the first quarter. For good measure, he ran in the two-point conversions after each of the first two TDs.
He turned in a highlight reel run, a 40-yard score, slipping through different tackles to push the score to 23-0 in the second quarter.
One play after Jaeir Roberts’ 60-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Brown was truncated on a penalty, Elijah Brown took Roberts’ floating pass for 55 yards, weaving his way through the Rebels defense for his final score of the night.
The Panthers rolled up 261 yards of offense in the first half alone, with Roberts accounting for 162 yards through the air.
The Panthers defense got into the act too. One play after Liberty’s only punt of the first half, Mekhi James picked off Ayden Garnett and strolled 32 yards, putting the Panthers ahead 36-0.
Amauri Kinyua’s 17-yard touchdown run at the 2:36 mark of the third quarter closed the books on Liberty County’s scoring.
A bad punt snap, and a blindside block call on top of that, put the Rebels at Liberty County’s 6-yard line with 8 minutes to play in the game. Sheldon Norberto scored on the next play for the Rebels’ only points.
The Panthers used five different running backs in the game as the first-string offense was pulled after one second-half series.
Glazer wanted to build a big early lead and get as many of his starters out of the game early to get the reserves some playing time and give his front-line players a little extra rest going into an off week. Even with a running clock in the fourth quarter, the Panthers hit those notes on his pre-game plan.
“We were able to get pretty much everybody in and get them in the game,” he said. “It’s always good as a coach when you can rotate in guys who work hard in practice and give them an opportunity to get some game reps.”
Glazer and the coaches didn’t want the players to look past Groves, which has lost 13 straight games and is 0-7 this season. But they also approached the game with bigger goals in mind.
“We’re trying to get better so we can continue our season,” Glazer said. “Tonight, we were playing Groves but we told them all week, we’re playing ourselves. If we want to keep playing into November, we have to be a better football team. It starts every day in practice. Every opponent, we treat them all the same. We need to come out to play the best football we can, regardless of who our opponent is.”
For more, see the October 16 edition of the Coastal Courier.
