Stratford remains undefeated with electric 41-14 win over Brookstone

At kickoff, two of the top four teams in the largest division in the GIAA were lined up to go at it.

Less than two-and-a-half hours later, only one left the field feeling like a top four team.

All of 18 seconds into the game, the Stratford Eagles showed they were ready to rock with a Tyler Stephens 44-yard touchdown run, and the Eagles kept on rolling en route to a 41-14 win over the Brookstone Cougars at Cantrell Stadium.

Head coach Paul Carroll had a feeling it might be great to be a Stratford Eagle.

“The guys were focused,” he said. “They were in the locker room and it wasn’t a whole lot of talking. Everybody had their ear pods on and they were just sitting there, thinking what they were doing, what they got to do tonight.

“They were more locked in.”

It was his team’s most focused pregame of the season.

“About 5:30,” Carroll said about when he got a real feeling this might be an on-point night. “I looked at ‘em at 5:30 to see what we’d do.”

It was Brookstone’s biggest loss since 52-0 to Prince Avenue Christian in the first round of the GHSA Class A playoffs in 2021.

The Eagles (5-0) welcomed back Jett Johnston from an injury, and he teamed up with brother Tucker four times for 52 yards and a score. But it was the run game that the Eagles rode to the victory.

Stephens crept closer to 1,000 yards, rushing for 215 more yards Friday to bring his season total to 906 yards. He had 154 in the first half as Stratford owned the state sheet but couldn’t quite pull away.

He went in from 44 yards only seconds into the game, his first touchdown of five, but lost a fumble in a scrum inside the 20-yard line on Stratford’s next possession. 

Brookstone (5-1) made it hurt, driving 75 yards on 18 plays while converting three of four third downs and one fourth down, getting a run from the 1 to tie it 50 seconds into the second quarter.

Stephens brought the kickoff back from the 1-yard line to the Brookstone 45, and the Eagles embarked on an efficient drive engineered by quarterback Tucker Johnston and finished by Stephens’ 9-yard run through a nice hole.

But Brookstone again had an answer, albeit its final answer of the night. On the second play of its next drive, Jason Kelly got a step ahead of the coverage for a perfect pass-and-catch and 73-yard touchdown, with the PAT giving Brookstone a 14-13 lead with 6:31 left in the half.

Back came Stephens and the Eagles.

Stephens, in his second season since transferring from Macon County, bumped into Johnston on the handoff as he tried to outrun pursuit to the edge. He did it anyway, breaking a few tackles in traffic and outrunning the Brookstone pursuit the rest of the way for a 70-yard touchdown.

George Dunn’s kick made it 20-14 with 5:38 until halftime.

The Eagles defense started getting momentum and forced its second three and out. 

Stephens, Johnson and freshman running back Aaron Jefferson went to work, eating up nearly three minutes with a nine-play, 55-yard drive that included only one third down.

Stephens got the scoring honors with a 7-yarder to give Stratford a 27-14 halftime lead.

The Eagles were starting to bow up on both sides of the ball, which brought joy to their physicality-preaching head coach.

“I thought we were more physical,” Carroll said.”I really did. I think the defense, we were flying around hitting folks, and offensively, we got back in our I formation and just really ran it right at them.”

Jefferson is giving Stratford a nifty 1-2 punch at running back, not unlike a tandem 80 miles to the north. Carroll agreed with a comparison to Atlanta’s Tyler Allgeier, a power back with deceptive speed and agility, and then came up with another.

“He’s like Jamal Anderson,” Carroll said. “Wit his quick feet and stuff. He really can run.”

Jefferson finished with 114 yards on 17 carries, the Eagles pounding the Cougars for 375 rushing yards on 50 carries altogether.

Johnston ran seven times for 25 yards, and was 8 of 12 passing for 93 yards.

“He didn’t make any (wrong reads),” Carroll said. He managed the game for us. I can sit there and say we’re going to play hard, we’re going to play fast, we’re going to play together, we’re going to do this and that.

“The main thing is to manage the chaos.”

And there wasn’t any in Stratford’s first real statement game of the season.

“They got us two years in a row,” Carroll said. “Our guys all week long, they were focused. You know, we didn’t really have good practices on defense. Execution.

“We just went into the game saying that we’re going to do what we do and see what happens. I think the guys just stepped up and they decided they wanted to be playmakers, and we made more plays than they did.”