Carrollton pairs up with Greenfield-Northwestern at Northwestern

Sep 10, 2015 11:00 PM

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CARROLLTON - There might not be a better rivalry in the WIVC than the Carrollton Hawks and the Greenfield-Northwestern Tigers. Forget the distance between the two towns (13 miles) and the history, the intriguing part of this rivalry is that it doesn’t really matter how good each side is. The showdowns always seem to be close and contested ones… Exactly what a rivalry should be.

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Now the history books will tell us that the rivalry has been one-sided for the past couple of years in the hands of Carrollton. The Hawks were in the midst of three of their best campaigns in school history (2012, 2013, 2014). Still the fixtures were close games, including last year when the vaunted Hawks won 39-8. It is easy to forget that Greenfield was only down 12-8 with the ball in the middle of the third quarter until the vastly athletic Hawks finally wore the Tigers down. The last victory for Greenfield over the Hawks came in 2011, a 26-20, overtime thriller.

Without a doubt the most famous game in the history between the two schools came before the turn of the century in 1999. The 9-2 Tigers met the undefeated Hawks in Carrollton in the second round of the playoffs. Carrollton had an absolutely ferocious defense that allowed only 8 points for the whole season and those 8 points came against Greenfield in week 5. This time hall of fame coach Dan Bowman hitched a scheme to unlock and infiltrate Carrollton’s defense and it worked. The Tigers scored 3 touchdowns and hung on to beat the Hawks 21-20 in front of over 4,000 people.

As mentioned before, Carrollton has enjoyed more success than Greenfield recently, but the momentum could very possibly be heading to over to Tiger town tonight. One big reason is their offensive line. Head coach Joe Pembrook clearly had a successfully summer by getting several new players adjusted and comfortable in the trenches. They did give up 33 points to Camp Point Central, but the o-line did their part by opening up holes for Taegan Grigsby, Cole Arnett, and Blane Billibruck to score 32 points.

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For the guys in green it’s been a work in progress. The run game has been almost ineffective through two weeks. Running back Alex Bowker, slot back Cole Brannan, and wide receiver Jerrett Smith have carried the ball a combined 32 times and have just 90 yards on the ground. Grigsby rushed for 247 yards on 26 carries last week against Camp Point alone, however, quarterback Wade Prough is Carrollton’s leading rusher with 164 yards on 44 carries. The majority of those are designed draw plays, but a decent proportion of them have been scrambles on broken plays.

Carrollton and Greenfield had different fates last week, but with possible perverse emotions toward them. Jerrett Smith of the Hawks caught a miraculous last second, game winning touchdown pass to defeat Mendon Unity. However, the 2014 state runners-up were oh so close to dropping to 0-2. On the other hand the Tigers fought tooth and nail with Camp Point, but fell at the final hurdle of the game losing 33-32. Greenfield has every right to be encouraged by their result. Carrollton has every right to worry if they’ll have to keep coming up with clutch plays to pull out victories or maybe that’s what makes them feel right at home.

The keys to the game for Carrollton will be to score first to set the tone and they have every chance of doing that because they have each game so far. The problem has been that they’ve blown their leads in each game. It will be a big boost to have everybody ready to go for all full 4 quarters from here on out. Head coach Nick Flowers did a great job of calling plays for Brannan and Bowker to run to the outside instead of up the middle, which is where the Hawk’s have had their line problems. It is tough to find a quicker backfield in the WIVC than those two.

Greenfield will probably not test the Carrollton defensive secondary as much as Unity did last week, yet will make the Hawk’s d-line work all game long. So the Tigers' key is to successfully run the ball and melt the clock as long as they can if they feel the need to. This will really be the first time Carrollton will have all of their starters available against a run-heavy team like Greenfield.

It is still technically early days so far in the 2015 football season and defeat isn’t terminal but it probably will feel that way for whoever does succumb to it.

Carrollton will officially be the home team, however the game will not be taking place at Carrollton Community High School. Instead it will be played at Northwestern High School in Palmyra, who co-op’s with Greenfield. Last weekend the floodlights at the Carrollton football field could not be turned on properly and had they to reschedule the game to 3:00 P.M. the next day. This week it appears that the lighting issue has not been resolved but hopefully it will be resolved soon after the Hawks and Tigers confrontation will be tonight.

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