For The Tribune
BROWNSTOWN
Brownstown Central coach Reed May had his team prepared for an expected tough battle against Charlestown on Friday night.
However, the Braves had domination on their minds as they grabbed a 14-7 lead late in the first quarter, opened a 26-14 lead by halftime and coasted to a 46-14 Mid-Southern Conference win at Blevins Memorial Stadium.
The Braves stacked the statistics up, as they had 19 first downs and 408 yards of total offense, to 11 first downs and 166 yards of offense for the visitors.
The Pirates managed only one first down in the second half.
The Braves have put 97 points on the scoreboard in their first two games, and May said he is pleased the way the offense is coming along.
“We’re starting to work the kinks out,” May said. “It kind of feels neat to me because we’re going back to do the old stuff we used to do, unbalanced, power stuff and then even now and then our quarterback will make a big play for us.”
May said he adjusted the offense to quarterback Kyle Kramer’s strengths.
“The quarterbacks we’ve had the past five years were great throwing quarterbacks,” May said. “We can’t recruit. Colleges can get what they want, the pros can get what they want. We have to adapt to the quarterback.”
After the Braves forced the Pirates to punt on their opening possession, Brownstown marched 67 yards in seven plays, capped off by John McKinney’s 11-yard touchdown run.
Both Charlestown touchdowns came on passes from Brendan Lawler to Garrett Woods, for 21 yards in the first period and 10 yards in the second period.
Cam Shoemaker caught a 17-yard TD pass from Kramer with 1:19 left in the first period to put the Braves on top for good.
Gavin Bane had a big night on offense for the Braves by scoring four touchdowns, on 16, 28- and 13-yard passes from Kramer, and on a 40-yard run.
For the night, Bane had three catches for 57 yards, and five carries for 76 yards.
Bane scored on a 16-yard pass from Kramer at 8:29 of the second period, and on a 40-yard run with 2:09 left in the first half.
“I was running a post,” Bane said about his pass routes. “Their safeties both came up and fly out and the middle was just wide open.”
Bane, who was one of the Braves’ leading tacklers said, “This week I had to focus on a halfback, which is the guy kind of by the quarterback. I keyed him the whole time so I was four yards off the while time. So basically where the ball went is where I went.
“The linemen blocked really well and everybody contributed.”
Kramer completed 8 of 14 passes for 105 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions.
Devin Stuckwisch completed the scoring on the night with a nine-yard run with 3:53 left in the game.
McKinney topped the Braves in rushing with 88 yards on nine carries.
Derek Rieckers and McKinney had interceptions for Brownstown.
The Braves, 2-0 overall and 1-0 in the MSC, will travel to Eastern (Pekin) this upcoming week.