Saturday, September 27, 2014
By ERIC FORTUNE
Leavittsburg
Lynn Bowden and Ben Phillips are first cousins.
That connection was apparent during Friday night’s All-American Conference National Division contest. It seemed like Bowden and Phillips drew up plays from scratch and they worked no matter what.
Of the five scoring drives by the Liberty Leopards, none were longer than seven plays as they rolled 33-0.
“I’ve been with Lynn since he’s been 5 years old,” Liberty coach Kevin Cylar said. “I’ve been seeing him and Ben make plays all their lives. It doesn’t really shock me when I see them do things like that. I’m not being arrogant. It’s just two good athletes. It has nothing to do with me. It’s just two great athletes being on the same page.”
After an early LaBrae (3-2, 0-1) turnover set up the Leopards (4-1, 1-0) at the Vikings’ 22 yard line, the Bowden and Phillips show started with a 20-yard touchdown pass that Phillips plucked out the air one-handed.
LaBrae failed to score on back-to-back possessions in Liberty territory. The Vikings were set to try again as the Leopards set up to punt at their 31 on fourth-and-7.
Instead Bowden took it up the sideline on a 69-yard run to make it 12-0 with seven seconds left in the first.
“He’s pretty special,” LaBrae coach John Armeni said. “He’s the guy that makes them go. I thought we did a pretty good job at times with him. Obviously, on a fourth-and-whatever, he takes a punt and goes 70 yards or whatever. You don’t plan for things like that.”
After a LaBrae punt, the Leopards extended their lead to 19-0 when Bowden found Phillips on a 31-yard pass midway through the second quarter.
“Ben and I stay after practice everyday on our routes and my timing of the throws,” Bowden said. “We connected.”
Bowden finished with 256 yards of offense: 138 on the ground and 108 through the air, with Phillips being the recipient of all three of Bowden’s completions.
Bowden put the finishing touches on his night with a 57-yard TD pass to Phillips. It came on a second down play that looked doomed from the start. Bowden ran back close to 20 yards before throwing it up in the waiting hands of Phillips at midfield, where he took it the rest of the way to make it 26-0 with 33 seconds left in the half.
“I think sometimes a broken play for Lynn is his best play,” Cylar said. “He gets to use his speed and his vision. On a broken play, you still have to have fundamentals. You still have to stick to the script. That is what they did.
“Ben had a post on that play, but he came back to the middle of the field. Lynn was able to see his number and throw it up. I don’t think it was as much luck as it may look like. We practice that. I expect them to make plays like that.”
“I enjoy going back and making people chase me,” Bowden added. “Once they get close to me, I know I can use my speed to get away. I have fun doing it. I just laugh about it when I go to the sidelines because there is nothing they can really do.
“I had a flashback on the pass I threw to Ben. I was originally supposed to go to our tight end, but all I saw was Ben on the reverse and I just threw it to him.”
The Vikings ran 44 plays in Liberty territory but couldn’t find the end zone despite Brenden Boone throwing for 138 yards on 18-of-33 passing with one interception.
“There were a lot of things that hurt us tonight,” Armeni said. “We had a lot of penalties, turnovers, and a lot of missed assignments. We just didn’t play very well. We need to get a whole lot better, very quickly.”