The Barons defeated the Blazers 50-36, handing Blair its first loss of the season.
On Thursday, Sept. 10, the Blair Blazers football team lost to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Barons. After building a lead in the second quarter, the Blazers allowed 24 unanswered points, leading the Barons to victory.
Blazers stand ready at the first game of the season Photo courtesy of Kieran Whittaker.
Blair opened the scoring with a touchdown and extra point to take an early 7-0 lead. B-CC responded after a long kickoff return gave Barons senior running back Aiah Mbayo a chance to score.
B-CC later reached the end zone again but failed on its two-point attempt, taking a 12-7 lead.
The Blazers responded in the second quarter, when senior running back Lucas Copeland juked out defenders and ran downfield for a Blair touchdown with 7:25 left in the half to regain the lead, 15-12.
Blair’s defense quickly added to their momentum when No. 7 intercepted a B-CC pass with around six minutes remaining. Less than a minute later, Copeland found the end zone with 5:49 left as Blair extended its lead.
However, the Blazers’ momentum ended just as quickly as it began. Just 14 seconds after Copeland’s touchdown, Mbayo responded with a rushing touchdown of his own, followed by a successful two-point conversion. The Barons then rattled off two more touchdowns in the next five minutes, taking the game into half with a 36-22 Barons lead.
Blair entered the second half trailing by two touchdowns and soon faced another setback when starting quarterback Malachi Rice left the game with an injury. Despite this, Blair began to work its way back into the game. With 1:05 remaining in the third quarter, No. 24 scored a touchdown, and the extra point cut B-CC’s lead to 36-29. After trailing by 14 at halftime, the Blazers entered the fourth quarter just one possession behind.
Blazers tussle with the Barons for the ball Photo courtesy of Kieran Whittaker.
The comeback came to a stall when B-CC scored with 8:44 remaining in the fourth quarter to push its lead to 42-29. A minute later, the Barons scored again and converted a two-point attempt, stretching the score to 50-29. Blair continued to fight and scored another touchdown with 2:12 remaining, but it wasn’t enough to overcome B-CC’s second-half surge, bringing the final score to 50-36.
The Blazers look to bounce back at home against the Paint Branch Panthers on Friday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. Both teams will enter the matchup with 1-1 records.
Mary Han. Yo! I'm Mary, a first-year SCO writer. Aside from writing, I can make eggs in at least three different ways. More »
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