By Josh Averbach ’18

On Friday, the Warriors moved to 1-1 after a 42-7 road loss to the Damascus Swarmin’ Hornets, a team that has won back-to-back 3A state championships.
The atmosphere before this momentous game was–cliche as it sounds–electric. There was a buzz in the Sherwood student section rarely seen at home games, let alone road games, complete with constant noise, absolutely no sitting down, and even a bit of crowd surfing. To the dismay of the Warrior faithful, however, the game itself did not go as well for Sherwood.
The game began with turnovers from both sides. Sherwood received the opening kickoff, and that drive ended when Damascus recovered a fumble in Sherwood territory after a botched snap on a punt play. Damascus squandered their opportunity with a fumble of their own, which Sherwood pounced on. The Warriors punted on their their ensuing drive, and the game had the makings of a slugfest.
“After the first couple of drives, I knew the game still wasn’t over and just felt that we needed to keep playing hard,” said senior offensive and defensive tackle Everett Stubblefield, a team captain.
The defensive struggle continued as Sherwood’s defense forced Damascus into a third and long. On that play, however, Damascus broke off a crowd-silencing touchdown run from inside their own territory. After the first quarter, Damascus led 7-0–a stalemate, except that one play.
During the second quarter, things began to unravel for the Warriors. The Swarmin’ Hornets cashed in another long touchdown run early in the second quarter. They then recovered a fumble inside the Sherwood five-yard line to make it 21-0.
“Our focus slipped, and we just couldn’t get back into a rhythm,” said Stubblefield.
After the second quarter, Damascus turned the game into a blowout by dominating the second half. Sherwood did not score until about three minutes left in the game.
As for the team’s takeaways from the game, Stubblefield says that the Warriors have work to do if they truly want to be an elite team, and that they can use this loss as motivation going forward.
Sherwood will look to regain positive momentum with their upcoming games at Einstein on September 15 and at home against Richard Montgomery a week later.