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Hammond wins wild one over Bowman
Updated: September 3, 2011 6:22PM
HAMMOND — The non-conference matchup between Hammond and Bowman had all the makings of outdoor arena football midway in the second quarter with the game tied at 24-24.
Someone’s defense had to eventually draw a line in the sand and as it turned out, it was the Wildcats who shut down the Eagles’ No. 1 weapon while relying on their own top guns in running back Michael Peavy and quarterback Eric Schreiber in a wild 66-30 win. The win makes Hammond 3-0 for the first time since 2007, when the Wildcats won six straight to begin the season.
But it was the Eagles who began the scoring, and how appropriate, it was on the first possession of the game when Bowman quarterback Antonio Pipkin hit wide receiver Cornelius Strickland on a 58-yard fly pattern to make it 8-0. The two connected again in the second quarter: same pattern, same result, this time for 53 yards and a 24-24 tie as Pipkin would complete his first five passes for 142 yards.
That’s when a light came on for Hammond: it’s never a good idea to single-cover a guy who not only has good hands but also finished second in the 100 and 200 in the state track meet last spring. Sure enough, for the rest of the game, no matter where Strickland went, there were no less then three purple jerseys following him, thus shutting down the Eagles’ offense.
The Bowman defense was not as successful in stopping Peavy, who found a variety of ways to find the end zone, scoring once on a second-quarter 5-yard pass from Schreiber to break the 24-24 tie, then scoring again on the Wildcats’ next possession on a 36-yard run, his second running TD in the first half. The senior running back would pick up 127 yards rushing in the second half.
And how ironic that on a game that would make a defensive coordinator re-think his true calling in life, Peavy’s fourth TD was a 61-yard interception return, one of three scores on defense for the Wildcats. Jesse Woods Curtis took two Eagles fumbles to the house from 60 and 38 yards out.
Not to be outdone was Schreiber, who matched his touchdown pass to Peavy with two scoring runs of 20 and 10 yards.
To give you an idea of how high scoring this game was, the Wildcats offense came pretty close to matching the entire point total of the Wildcat boys basketball team in their matchup with Bowman last season, a 71-69 loss Feb. 9 in Gary.
For the Eagles, who had come into the game scoring 77 points in their first two games, the loss ended their shot at being the first Bowman football team to begin a season 3-0, despite picking up 212 yards total offense in the first quarter.
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