Gretna holds Tunstall to 85 total yards of offense in rout

DRY FORK — Gretna used a balanced attack to dismantle Tunstall 39-14 on Friday night.

The Hawks (2-0) capitalized on a largely ineffective Tunstall defense as quarterback Jayme Barksdale racked up 266 total yards, and Gretna used a stout defense to defeat the Trojans (2-2), who only managed 85 yards of total offense.

“We played well tonight,” Gretna coach Chris Thurman said. “But we still have a lot to fix.”

The Hawks’ offense managed to get on the board first after inheriting a short field thanks to a Trojan fumble deep in their own territory. Andre Dickerson capped off the three-play drive with a 16-yard touchdown run to give Gretna a 7-0 lead with 10:23 left in the first quarter.

Barksdale was able to record his first score of the evening with 5:07 left in the opening period when he connected with Commilious Walker for a 13-yard touchdown pass to put the Hawks up 13-0.

The Trojans showed some signs of life midway through the second quarter when Tae Gunter scored on a 19-yard pass from JaQuan Hubbard to cut their deficit to 20-7, but that was the closest Tunstall was able to get to the defending Group A state champion Hawks.

Thurman still has things he would like to work on despite the Hawks’ dominating performance.

“We’re still young,” Thurman said. “We gave them a lot of yards on the play action pass. We played the pass well at times, but we need to look at our pass defense. We’ll just have to go to the film and fix it.”

Thurman was extremely pleased with Barksdale’s performance, but still plans to send him back to his natural position.

“He is one of our better athletes,” Thurman said. “Some of the fumbles in the second half were his fault. He is an all-state receiver, and we’ll send him back to wide receiver when our starter (injured sophomore Nick Miller) returns” to the lineup.

Tunstall coach Buddy Brown saw some positives in his team’s performance, despite the loss.

“We were beat by a better team,” Brown said. “But I was proud of our defense. The stop right before the half was big, and I thought we tackled well in the second half. They are skilled at getting teams spread out and they are tough to tackle in the open field.

“We need to focus on getting well. Once we get healthy I think we’ll be a decent team,” Brown said. “It’s no secret they are awfully good. But we hung in there for a bit, and I think we showed a lot of grit tonight.”