OPENING NIGHT FLOP

Trenton Throttled By Brookfield In Season Opener

With exactly five minutes until the Trenton Bulldogs kicked off the 2020 season, the familiar bell echoed across C.F. Russell Stadium. With Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls” blaring on the stadium speaker system, the Bulldogs tore through a banner and raced onto the field while a crowd doing its best to social distance in the stands cheered raucously.
It had been 181 days since Trenton High School last competed in a MSHSAA-sanctioned sporting event – the Class 3, District 14 girls’ basketball championship game back on Feb. 29. Friday’s football game with Brookfield represented a return to some normalcy, the return of live sports for a community starved to see its local athletes competing again. Seniors were honored prior to the contest. It was a celebration.
Until it wasn’t.
Once the game started, it didn’t take long for the Bulldogs to implode in horrific fashion, tail spinning to a 50-0 defeat and marring the return of high school sports in Trenton.
Brookfield scored a long touchdown on just its second snap of the ball game. Trenton, meanwhile, fumbled the ball away on its second play of the game. Things escalated from there and the Bulldogs trailed 28-0 after one quarter and 44-0 at halftime. The game ended with Trenton shut out, unable to pinpoint the loss on any one area of underperformance.
There were too many.
“We let them jump out with two quick scores,” Trenton coach Kevin Hixson said. “We didn’t take care of the ball and defensively we weren’t as physical as we are capable of being. We just looked like we weren’t ready to play. I don’t know what else to say.”
There were turnovers. Trenton’s fumble on its second play was the first of four giveaways in the ball game. Brookfield cashed in on all but one, scoring three times after a Trenton fumble. After the fourth, one which occurred just before halftime and set the visitors up inside the 20-yard line, Brookfield coach Scott Stevens – a 2008 Trenton graduate – called off the dogs and opted not to punch in another touchdown, content to take his 44-0 lead into the locker room at the break.
“They weren’t caused turnovers, we dropped the football,” Hixson said. “I told the kids I’m going to put this on me and the coaches. I’ve never had situations where we were too many men on the field or not enough guys on the field. That’s just a lack of discipline. That’s got to be fixed. We have got to do a better job on both sides of the ball, we have got to get our heads in the game. For me it is just disappointing. I really, really thought it might be a 28-14 game, something like that. I didn’t picture the final outcome that it was. We’re going to have to do a better job of coaching the kids.”
There were big plays yielded. Four of Brookfield’s seven touchdowns in the game came on runs of 20 yards or more and two of those were runs of over 50 yards. Trenton also allowed a punt return to their own 24, setting up a Brookfield touchdown, and allowed an 18-yard run for a 2-point conversion after a chop block on the initial try moved Brookfield back 15 yards.
Some of what happened Friday night could be explained away with the experience discrepancy Trenton faced. Brookfield was a senior-heavy squad with players entering their fourth year in Stevens’ program. Trenton, meanwhile, had just three offensive starters back, two of which are in new roles, and just five starters back on the defensive side. So Trenton was at a disadvantage there. But that excuse doesn’t cover 50 points – not according to coach Hixson anyway.
“I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” Hixson said. “Our youth and inexperience in week 1 is there, but it’s not 50 points. We don’t play that many young guys on defense. We have some older guys who haven’t played in some of those positions, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse. We just mentally weren’t ready and weren’t prepared. When you don’t have a lot of experience and it starts running downhill it just really rolls and that’s kind of what happened to us tonight.”
Trenton has incurred some bad defeats, most recently to Lathrop and Maryville teams that would be state title contenders. The book is yet to be written on the 2020 Brookfield Bulldogs, but Friday night was definitely an indication that Stevens’ crew is finally ready to have some success under the former Trenton running back, who was just 5-25 overall as the head coach at Brookfield entering Friday night’s contest.
Brookfield’s quarterback Derek Leibhart led all rushers in the contest with 189 yards and four touchdowns on just seven carries. Fullback Trace Alexander added 109 yards and three touchdowns on 11 carries for the visitors.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Brookfield,” Hixson said. “They came out and they were prepared. I didn’t think that they were 50 points better than us, but we turned the ball over four times and gave them opportunities. So, we go back to the drawing board and watching film and get prepared for East Buchanan.”
Trenton will travel to Gower to face East Buchanan in week 2. All East Buchanan did on Friday was defeat South Harrison – a team that was voted as the Grand River Conference frontrunner in the league’s annual preseason coaches poll.
The game in Gower is scheduled for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

SUMMARY
Brookfield 28 – 16 – 6 – 0 — 50
TRENTON 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 — 0

INDIVIDUAL SCORING
FIRST QUARTER
Brookfield —Derek Leibhart 54-yard run (Trace Alexander run).
Brookfield — Alexander 4-yard run (run failed).
Brookfield — Alexander 22-yard run (Leibhart run).
Brookfield — Alexander 11-yard run (run failed).
SECOND QUARTER
Brookfield — Leibhart 27-yard run (Jaden Abongo run).
Brookfield — Leibhart 62-yard run (Alexander run).
THIRD QUARTER
Brookfield — Leibhart 22-yard run (run failed).

TEAM STATISTICS
Stat TRENTON Brookfield
First Downs 8 15
Third Down Eff. 3-10 3-5
Fourth Down Eff. 1-1 0-0
Total Yards 150 363
Rushes-Yards 36-132 35-363
Passing Yards 18 0
Comp.-Att.-Int. 2-4-0 0-2-0
Penalties-Yards 5-28 4-40
Fumbles-Lost 5-4 2-0

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — TRENTON, Payden McCullough, 11-40; Quincy Griffin, 8-37; Coleman Griffin, 5-28; Sam Gibson, 6-11; Canyon Vonburg, 4-8; Nate Burkeybile, 2-8. BROOKFIELD, Derek Leibhart, 7-189; Trace Alexander, 11-109; Gabe Rodriguez, 7-37; Donavan Parn, 6-15; Jaden Abongo, 2-12; Carsen Beckman, 2-1.
PASSING — TRENTON, Coleman Griffin, 2-4-0, 18 yards. BROOKFIELD, Leibhart, 0-2-0.
RECEIVING — TRENTON, Royce Jackson, 1-11; Quincy Griffin, 1-7. BROOKFIELD, none.