The Trojans, prior to a battle with the Golden Eagles at home, had scored 118 points with only 24 points allowed. You couldn’t count one time Cary-Grove had trailed in those games. Jacobs struck gold on the first possession against CG in week four, however, making sure the “no trailing” movement wouldn’t continue into week five.
The opening drive by Jacobs lasted five plays and was capped off by a 34-yard TD run following a 42-yard scamper to the CG 35 yard line two snaps prior.
Once the Eagles hit paydirt, the Trojans had to do something that had been as rare as a loss up to that point – battle back in a deficit.
“They definitely caught us sleeping on that first drive,” senior linebacker Charlie Ciske said. “We saw what we needed to get fixed, we fixed it, and we just kept learning.
“You can’t change the past, you gotta learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
As evidenced by Jacobs being held scoreless the rest of the way until 37.2 seconds were on the clock in the fourth quarter, scoring a late touchdown while down 35-7, the defense certainly made sure a drive like the Eagles’ opener wouldn’t occur a second time.
“It just seemed like we were controlling the line of scrimmage,” Coach Seaburg said. “Our guys were playing really physical and it’s good to take control of the line of scrimmage and not allow [Jacobs] to really get anything.”
“We stopped playing to not lose and started playing to win,” Ciske said. “We started to just take some heads off. We were trying to get some good hits in.”
One of those “good hits” came on fourth down and one as the Jacobs offense had possession at the Trojans’ 30 yard-line during a drive that lasted more than 5 minutes in a 7-7 standstill. Senior Ty Drayton provided the turnover on downs for Cary-Grove.
“It was great,” Ciske said. “I mean, it’s not pretty, the linemen, they gotta go down, they gotta do all the dirty work. I’m proud of them, they did what they had to do.”
After the defense provided a spark and some momentum to the rest of the Trojans, the offense took the lead with an 11-play drive, capped off by a Peyton Seaburg score from a yard out. The Trojans wouldn’t relinquish that 14-7 lead acquired nearly four minutes into the second quarter, and the offense would continue to push the ball forward throughout the night, grabbing three more touchdowns and a 28-point margin as the fourth quarter clock showed 2 minutes and 44 seconds.
“It’s always good to know when you’ve got someone in your corner,” Ciske said of the offense. “They just kept going, kept going, kept going.”
However, the offense didn’t go without a bump in the road – CG wasn’t able to convert on fourth down and four at the Golden Eagles’ 8 yard-line with 5:53 left in the third, and the defense had to show up again to protect the 21-7 lead after the Jacobs offense gained that opportunity to try to cut the lead down to a score.
“When [the offense] were finally stopped at that one point, we were like, ‘We owe it to them to get that stop back,’” Ciske said.
Three plays following the fourth-down stuff by the Eagles, they were forced to punt at their own 10, gaining only three yards on the drive. That stop was gained back, indeed.
All in all, the Trojans were able to turn their early struggles into strength, and Cary-Grove will carry their winning streak, with their record standing at 4-0, into a road matchup against the Prairie Ridge Wolves.
“You never know how you’re gonna respond when you’re down a little bit,” Coach Seaburg said. “It was good to see how our kids responded.”
PR’s squad is also undefeated heading into a week five conference battle on their home turf. Prairie Ridge brings a lot of force to be reckoned with for the Trojans.
“We’re gonna prepare like we would for any game, any opponent,” Coach Seaburg said. “They’ve been playing really well, I know they’re not giving up many points, and we’re just gonna give it our best.”