GREENFIELD — It didn’t matter what area of the game it was — offense, defense, special teams — Greenfield-Central dominated from the opening whistle on Friday night.
Behind an opening first quarter lead of 21-0, Greenfield-Central shut out the visiting Greensburg Pirates 44-0 at Greenfield-Central High School.
G-C senior Brayden Herrell got the fun started by returning the opening kickoff past midfield. He followed it up with runs of 19, 5, 12, and 7 yards before eventually punching in the first touchdown of the game from the one-yard line.
From there, the Cougars never looked back.
Herrell nearly matched his carry total from last week on just the opening drive.
“Last week Plainfield had guys keyed on Brayden,” Greenfield-Central head coach Travis Nolting said. “It was Andrew Zellers’ night then and tonight it was Herrell’s. That’s how our offense works. One guy might have a big night, and somebody else might have a big night the next week.”
Herrell finished the night with 118 yards and one touchdown, with 95 of those yards coming in the opening half where he got all but one of his carries.
Herrell wasn’t the only one to have a big night for the Cougar offense.
Zellers cooled off a bit after last week’s 197 yard performance, but still added 109 yards and two touchdowns of his own.
Freshman Dallas Freeman kept his solid start to the season going as well, adding two more touchdowns through the air — the first to senior Garrett Mullen, and the second to junior Kirk Knecht.
Late in the game, freshman Cooper Hinton joined the scoring parade when he broke off a 53-yard run to cap the scoring.
“I thought we did a good job of spreading the ball around.” Nolting said. “Dallas going for two touchdowns was nice to see. Overall, a pretty good offensive performance from us.”
Knecht left this mark on the defensive side of the ball as well. For the second game in a row, he intercepted two passes.
The first came on Greensburg’s best drive of the game where they took the ball from their one-yard line all the way down to the red zone in the closing minutes of the first half. Greensburg quarterback Sam West tried to hit his receiver near the front right pylon and Knecht made a jumping catch to get the Cougars the ball.
“Kirk’s a phenomenal player. He’s a special, special young man,” Nolting said. “Phenomenal job by him again tonight. Four interceptions in two games is really, really good and we hope he keeps it going.”
It wasn’t all Knecht on the defensive side of the ball though. The entire Cougar defense caused fits for West and the Pirates offense.
West, who ran for 205 yards and three touchdowns last week, was held to just 14 yards.
A big reason for that was Greenfield-Central sophomore Payton Foley, who recorded one sack, three tackles for a loss and one fumble recovery.
The Cougar defense stymied West through the air as well, intercepting him a total of four times. Along with the two from Knecht, seniors Owen Anderson and Brodie Mayberry each added one.
Now 2-0, Greenfield-Central has one of its biggest games of the season next week when they travel to Fortville to face off against last year’s 4A state champions and the team that knocked them out of sectional — Mt. Vernon.
“There’s some things tonight that we didn’t do well, and there’s some things we need to fix.” Nolting said. “Mt. Vernon isn’t going to make mistakes. They’re a great program. They’re well-coached and we have to go play at their place, so we just have to have a great week of practice and come out ready to go next Friday.”
