Ellis tosses 5 TDs – 4 to Brickman – in H-L rout of Carey

BASCOM – With top target Jack Colatruglio out to start the season with an injury, someone had to step up for Hopewell-Loudon. Insert junior Brody Brickman.Brickman, who made his first career start Friday night, finished with four receiving touchdowns and forced a fumble on defense as the Chieftains crushed Carey 30-7.He did all of that after starting the game with a fumble of his own. Safe to say he responded."I just had to forget about it, thank the O-line because without them I wouldn't of scored, and execute. That's what I did," Brickman said. "This feels amazing, but this feels like something you're supposed to do because when someone goes down someone has to do it, they're all relying on you. You just have to execute and replace them."H-L coach Brian Colatruglio added: "I tried to tell people all offseason … he's a guy who played JV last year and he's been sitting behind some pretty good players," he said with a smile. "We knew what we had in him on both sides of the ball. He's a really good football player and when we got the ball to him you saw what happened tonight."It wasn't all smiles the whole time for the Chieftains (1-0), however. Carey's Bostyn Ritter almost returned the opening kickoff back for a touchdown as Carey started its opening drive from H-L's 20. Four plays later, Mace Puckett broke a key tackle and ran in an 11-yard touchdown on a fourth-and-1 to give Carey a 7-0 advantage less than three minutes in.And after Carey's Tripp Phoenix recovered a fumble at H-L's 48, things were trending in the Blue Devils' favor. But after a big defensive stop, H-L got going and didn't look back.Jacoby Ellis found Brickman for a 21-yard TD with 6:51 left in the first half, but the two-point conversion failed as Carey led 7-6.Later in the half, Ellie found Brickman again – this time on a 13-yard score – with zeros on the clock as the time expired going into halftime. H-L led 12-7."That's not good … we had them right where we wanted them, but we have to get off the field on fourth down, we have to get off the field on third-and-long. We have to get off the field in those situations, but we didn't," Carey coach Jonathon Mershman said. "Against good teams if you don't get off the field when you have an opportunity to get off the field, it usually isn't going to end up well for you."Also what hindered Carey after that first TD drive was injuries. Every few plays the Blue Devils (0-1) had someone going down with cramps, but the main injury was in the first quarter as senior all-Ohio running back Eli Steen went down with a knee injury and didn't return."Our biggest thing was that we had a lot of guys go down with cramps, so that's something I'll have to take a look at … it's on me," Mershman said. "With Eli going down that's a big hit, but when you start to lose your No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 … we were digging deep. You can't have that on offense or defense, which those guys were our linebackers, so it was affecting both sides of the ball."Carey forced a punt to begin the second half, but then on it's first play on offense, Brickman forced a fumble, which was recovered by do-it-all Kellen Frankart.Seven plays later, Ellis tossed a deep ball to Brickman, who out-jumped the Carey defender ripping the ball away for a 25-yard score. After three quarters it was 18-7 Chieftains.On a fourth-and-goal from Carey's 7, Ellis found Frankart over the middle on a halfback screen. Frankart dragged a few Blue Devils into the end zone to give H-L a 24-7 lead early in the fourth.Then the Ellis-to-Brickman connection capped the scoring as Brickman fouind himself wide open on a fourth-and-12 for a 27-yard score.Ellis finished the game with five TD passes."You know when you play (Carey) that it's going to be a fight. They're going to make some plays, we're going to make some plays … our kids are just so physically and mentally tough," Colatruglio said. "Every time we made a mistake, we made a play immediately after."Extremely happy with our backs and our offensive line. We've beaten these guys a couple years in a row now, but we have not run the ball on them ever. This was by far the best we've established a ground game against them, which is huge because then you saw what it opens in the pass game. If we play complimentary offense like that, we're going to be tough to stop." Hopewell-Loudon 30, Carey 7C&emsp;&emsp;7&emsp;&emsp;0&emsp;&emsp;0&emsp;&emsp;0&emsp;&emsp;– 7H-L&emsp;&emsp;0&emsp;&emsp;12&emsp;&emsp;6&emsp;&emsp;12&emsp;&emsp;– 30First quarterC – Mace Puckett 11 run (Benson Kloepfer kick), 9:42Second quarterH-L – Brody Brickman 21 pass from Jacoby Ellis (pass failed), 6:51H-L – Brickman 13 pass from Ellis (pass failed), .00Third quarterH-L – Brickman 25 pass from Ellis (run failed), 6:08Fourth quarterH-L – Kellen Frankart 7 pass from Ellis (kick failed), 10:22H-L – Brickman 27 pass from Ellis (kick failed), 5:30