Hornets football falls to Cavs

Team loses first game of 2010 season

Friday, Sept. 17, 2010

Ray Hayes scored on a one-yard run with about four minutes remaining in regulation to give host Calvert a 14-7 win over Great Mills last Friday.

"We wanted to give the kids some confidence after our second-half letdown against Leonardtown," Calvert head coach Marc Watson said, referring to the 38-21 season-opening loss to Leonardtown in which the Cavaliers led after three quarters. "It was a very disappointing loss for us because we were up through three quarters and kind of fell apart in the fourth. It was a good thing for confidence to get our record back to .500. It was definitely a much-needed, hard-fought win."

Great Mils, which trounced Thomas Stone, 47-14, in its 2010 season opener, trailed, 7-6, at halftime and managed to get to midfield on its last drive but time elapsed.

"We had some off-the-field issues that happened right before the end of the school day and the kids came in a little down because of that and we didn't play well," said Great Mills head coach Bill Griffith, who declined to go into detail. "Calvert came out and they played well enough to win and we didn't play well enough to win."

The Cavaliers (1-1, 1-0 SMAC) opened the scoring in the second quarter on a two-yard scoring run by C.J. Cannon, but Great Mills answered late in the half when Anthony Smith combined with quarterback Jordan Hurt on a 76-yard pass play to give the Hornets (1-1, 0-1) a 7-6 lead at the break.

Calvert quarterback Frank Lanham passed for nearly 75 yards and the Cavaliers rushed for around 130, including nearly 75 by Hayes. Cannon also added three sacks and a lot of pressure in the Great Mills backfield.

Watson also singled out cornerbacks D'Andre Holland and Shaquille Morsell, linebacker Stewart Brooks and defensive end Luke Carroll for their fine play.

"Offensively we didn't play well, but we did enough to win the game," Watson said. "Basically we just kept playing, we played four quarters and that was a step in the right direction for us."

Defensively for the Hornets, Kenny Daniels had three sacks and an interception.

"Even myself, I didn't call a good game offensively," Griffith said. "There just wasn't any emotion there on any of our parts. We were frustrated about the way we were playing because this wasn't the team we saw against Thomas Stone. We were trying to get the kids pumped up and we thought we had done a good job of that, but when your defense is on the field for 70 percent of the game it's not a good sign."

Great Mills played Landsdowne on Thursday evening, which ended too late for inclusion into this edition.

mreid@somdnews.com