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After last week’s loss to no. 1 Sandy Creek, the LaGrange football team came into Thursday needing a win and the Grangers dominantly handled business, trumping Trinity Christian 41-7. 

“Look, you lose a tough game last week and there is a lot of adversity. And our guys, they never flinched. They came to prepare on Sunday, didn’t even blink an eye, didn’t make excuses, didn’t blame anybody, just went back to work,” LaGrange coach Matt Napier said of the bounce-back performance this week. 

It looked like it might be a long day at the office after the opening possession of the game as LaGrange had a punt blocked and received by the Lions in the end zone for an early 7-0 lead.

“That was a real gut punch for us and served as a wake-up call for the team,” Napier said.

 The Grangers were unphased and quickly settled into the game when Dylan Barber rattled off a 65-yard rushing touchdown on the ensuing drive.

“They should probably watch more film,” Barber said, chuckling. “I couldn’t do it without my teammates and especially the guys blocking for me up front.”

Barber had quite possibly his most complete game as the starter for LaGrange. He showed his duel-threat abilities all night and connected with Malachi Fannin-Render on a screen pass to give LaGrange its first lead of the game with 3:11 to go in the first quarter.

The offense stayed in high gear for the rest of the game and the defense matched their energy. Cornelius Brown came through with two monster defensive plays in the first half. The first was a fumble recovery inside the red zone late in the first quarter as the Lions were driving to try and tie the game. The second was with the Grangers leading 21-7 in the second quarter when Brown came down with a huge interception in the red zone.

“He’s a real linebacker,” Napier said of Brown. “He weighs just 138 pounds, and he’s the kid causing those turnovers. He’s the guy forcing those fumbles. So just to see him make those types of plays, really makes me proud. He’s the epitome of the underdog, undersized guy.”

In between his two game-changing plays, Fannin-Render found the end zone for the second time on the evening, his first rushing touchdown. Fannin-Render was electric and scored the final touchdown of the night as well when he scampered into the end zone with under two minutes to play in the third quarter. 

“Our connection has been there since my first day of practice,” Barber said of Fannin-Render. “We are always on the same page and he makes my job so much easier.”

The game was over long before Fannin-Render delivered the dagger as the Lions’ defense could not contain Barber and Fannin-Render all night. Barber threw his second touchdown of the game on a scramble drill with under a minute to go in the first half, showing off a tremendous ability to improvise when he hit Kalvin Snowberger over the middle for a touchdown as the latter muscled his way over the goal line. 

Barber also had an 89-yard rush in the second half, but was caught on the 2-yard line by a shoestring tackle. Caydin Thomas got the honors of punching in the football. 

Barber is starting to take full command of the offense in his first year as the starter and Napier has been most impressed with the fact that his starting quarterback did not turn the ball over.

“Everybody sees the big, wild plays, but what I really am proud of is he doesn’t turn the ball over. I think that’ll go missing in his timeline, because he had a lot of rushing yards, had a lot of passing yards, but he didn’t turn the football over, and that’s a sign of a really good quarterback,” Napier said.

The Granger defense proved once again that it’s one of the very best in 3A even though they were down one of their best players in junior linebacker Noah Outland, who suffered a leg injury in last week’s loss to Sandy Creek.

“It’s been next man up on both sides of the ball, we have reached that point in the season,” Napier said. “They bent today but didn’t break and the guys on the side of the ball are scraping and crawling.”

Brown was not the only Granger that came up with big plays on defense as Javier Easter registered a sack on third down late in the first half to force the Lions to punt. 

LaGrange is now 2-2 overall and 1-1 in region play. The Grangers will be back in action next Friday away to Fayette County.