Benedict football shows fight, takes positives from another quick playoff exit
As the seconds wound down Saturday, Chennis Berry put his arm around Aeneas Dennis at the 35-yard line at Charlie W. Johnson Stadium.
Berry, the fourth-year Benedict coach, wanted to provide encouragement to the Tigers’ quarterback after he threw an interception that sealed the 35-25 loss to Lenoir-Rhyne in the second round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.
“Coach Berry tried to keep me up because it was hard, you know,” Dennis said. “He tried to keep my head on straight and said everything that needed to be said.”
In the postgame locker room speech, Berry continued to lift his players’ spirits, singling out accomplishments and picking out the positives from another historic season for Benedict.
The Tigers went 11-0 in the regular season for the second-straight year and won their second consecutive Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship. Benedict again was a No. 1 seed and earned a first-round bye.
Saturday was a lot better showing than last year’s playoff debut — a 23-6 loss to Wingate.
“I thought our guys showed some resiliency through it all,” Berry said. “I told them how proud I was of them and where we have come as a football team. Our mission every week is to go 1-0. We didn’t accomplish that mission today. That doesn’t mean we had a failure. We don’t lose, we learn. We learned from all of it and we made some plays. We just didn’t make enough plays.”
With the win, Lenoir-Rhyne advances to play Valdosta State next week. It was the Bears’ first road playoff victory in five tries.
The game featured two of the top-ranked defenses in Division II but ended with an offensive showcase. They combined for 1,001 yards of total offense.
But Lenoir-Rhyne’s defense bottled up the Tigers, who led 19-14 at halftime, for a stretch in the second half as it took control of the game. The Bears held the Tigers to zero yards in the third quarter and put some pressure on Dennis, sacking the senior QB five times in the second half after not recording one in the first half.
“We didn’t get a ton of pressure and gave up too many explosive pass plays in the first half,” L-R coach Mike Jacobs said. “In the second half and third quarter in particular, I thought we were able to be disruptive. Those couple series in the third quarter were the turning point and got a lot of momentum going for us.”
L-R quarterback Sean White also found his rhythm in the second half, tossing a pair of touchdown passes in the third quarter to put the Bears up 28-19. White finished 27-of-35 passing for 315 yards.
Zayvion Turner-Knox added to the lead on a two-yard run to put the Bears up 35-19 with 9:42 left. The score was set up by Dwayne McGee’s 56-yard run. McGee had a season-high 216 yards rushing and a touchdown.
Lenoir-Rhyne finished with 560 yards of offense, the most given up by Benedict since allowing 604 against Livingstone on Sept. 5, 2015. The Tigers entered the game second in Division II in total defense, allowing an average of 207 yards.
The Tigers’ offense showed signs of life in the fourth. Dennis hit Reggie Harden for a 36-yard score but the two-point conversion was no good as the lead was cut to 35-25 with 5:49 left.
Harden finished with six catches for a career-high 230 yards and three touchdowns, the other coming in the first half on scores of 58 and 87 yards.
Benedict stopped Lenoir-Rhyne on fourth down at Tigers’ 35, then drove it to the L-R 23. But Percy King picked off Dennis to end it.
Dennis, the graduate transfer from Shorter University, finished 17-of-29 passing Saturday for a season-high 376 yards and four touchdowns.
Caden High had six catches for 106 yards and a TD.
“I thought we played better than we played a year ago, but ultimately we didn’t do enough,” Berry said. “We played our butts off against a good football team. But we weren’t the better football team today. But we showed we were going to fight until the end and we have a good football program. … We are developing a good program here that we could be proud of.”
