Brighton’s defense stifles Irondequoit in battle of Class A unbeatens

By KEVIN OKLOBZJIA

Considering the Irondequoit Eagles had piled up 186 points in their first five games, containing them was going to be no easy task for the visiting Brighton Bruins on Thursday night.

Or so it seemed. Truth be told, Brighton made it look easy, prevailing 14-6 in the battle of Section V Class A unbeatens.

Playing their trademark hard-hitting, give-’em-nothing-on-the-line-of-scrimmage style, the Bruins (6-0) forced five punts, sacked quarterback Taiden Makubire four times and limited Irondequoit to just the one touchdown.

“You just have to be gap responsible,” Brighton coach Stephen Lian said. “People want to make football complicated, but it’s really not. If you can play gap-sound, physical defense, you’re going to put yourself in a good position.”

The Bruins did just that. They prevented Irondequoit’s triple-threat wide receivers from getting open deep, sealed off the edges to prevent big plays to the outside, and occasionally bent but rarely broke when the Eagles (5-1) relied on running backs Cameron Freeman and Myles Wynn.

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For that, Lian gave the credit to defensive coordinator Andrew Fox.

“He put together an incredible plan on a short week and the kids downloaded it into their brains,” Lian said.

Offense didn’t come easy for the Bruins, either, but in the second half Irondequoit simply couldn’t stop Gavin Parks. The senior running back scored the game’s first touchdown, did all the heavy lifting on the second scoring drive and finished with 194 yards on 39 carries.

This from a guy who said he was tense all day because of the magnitude of this showdown between unbeatens.

“I couldn’t eat in school, I was so nervous,” he said.

For the first two quarters, defense and punting ruled supreme. The Eagles had threatened on their first two possessions, but the Brighton pass rush rose to the occasion. A sack by junior linebacker Matthew Heininger ended the first drive on fourth-and-nine at the Brighton 19, then a sack by senior linebacker Kaleb Matthews turned a third-and-seven from the Bruins 11 into fourth-and-16 from the 20.

“It’s really a situation where, when the time comes, we have guys who are going to make plays,” Heininger said.

The Bruins were finding yardage equally difficult to gain. Four of their first five drives ended in punts.

But senior Noah Wagner finally provided the big wake-up with a dynamic runback of a Freeman punt early in the third quarter.

“It was quite the stalemate for a while and I knew we needed a spark,” Wagner said. “It felt like I had an opportunity to get some yards.”

“Some” turned out to be 30 yards as Wagner took the ball from the Bruins 35 to the Irondequoit 35. From there, Brighton needed just five plays to find the end zone, four of which were runs by Parks: of 4, 3, 26 and then the final 3 yards for a 7-0 lead 4:58 into the third quarter.

Irondequoit immediately retaliated, driving 56 yards in seven plays for a touchdown, and making it look easy. The Eagles also did it all on the ground, with Freeman carrying five times for 44 of those yards, including the final 17.

As they always do, the Eagles went for two but Freeman was swarmed under by a host of Brighton defenders and the Bruins led 7-6.

Wagner scored the winning touchdown with 5:02 to play on an eight-play, ground-and-pound drive that started at the Irondequoit 43.

Parks carried six times on the march for 33 yards. The final five yards came on a pass into the left flat to Wagner, but only after quarterback Grady Hopkin faked a handoff to Parks.

“We’d been running the run play to the right side the whole game and I was wide open,” Wagner said.

Ahead 14-6, the Bruins locked it down on Irondequoit’s final possession and moved to 6-0.

“This game’s massive,” Wagner said. “We haven’t really been tested, we haven’t really had to play in the fourth quarter.”

They passed those tests on Thursday, and in doing so made quite a statement.

“But in Section V, where you’ve got 15 teams trying to get into eight playoff spots, every game’s a statement game,” Lian said.

This was the biggest yet for Brighton, however.

“This shows Section V that we’re a team to watch out for,” Heininger said.