It was anything but a pleasant experience for McCallie School, but Brentwood Academy's Tomario Pleasant and teammate Camron Johnson made sure the Eagles had an incredibly pleasant bus ride back to their Nashville suburb Friday night following a 46-24 Division II-AAA victory over the Blue Tornado.
Beneath a full moon, and before an uncharacteristically small McCallie home crowd due to fall break, Pleasant scored on touchdown runs of 67, 1 and 69 yards and Johnson caught three touchdown passes from senior quarterback Gavin Schoenwald that covered 145 total yards.
"We couldn't tackle them," said McCallie coach Ralph Potter, who coached at Brentwood Academy for five years before returning to the Blue Tornado for a second stint as head coach of his alma mater. "There were times we played pretty well defensively and times we played pretty well offensively, but the game got away from us midway through the third quarter."
Offered winning coach Cody White, whose Eagles improved to 7-0 for the season: "We did a great job tonight. They got to our defense a little bit in the first half, which was good for us. But we responded in the second half really well."
Indeed, after totaling 208 yards of offense in the opening half, the Blue Tornado (5-3) netted just 79 yards in the final two periods. Brentwood Academy, which piled up 249 yards before intermission, added 302 after the break to finish with 551.
So even as McCallie owned the clock with a possession time of 29:18, the Eagles dominated the scoreboard and yardage with five of their scores coming on plays of 31 yards or more.
Not that McCallie went quietly early. Trailing by 14-3 in the opening period and 24-10 late in the second quarter, the Blue Tornado pulled within 24-17 with just over a minute to go before halftime.
"I thought it was anybody's game at halftime, and we got a couple of defensive stops early in the third," Potter said. "But then they made some big plays."
BJ Harris proved McCallie's offense is more than quarterback DeAngelo Hardy, running back Xavier Brooks and receiver Rico Dozier when Harris scored two touchdowns in the opening half after Brooks left the field with an apparent ankle injury.
Of course, Hardy was his usual ground-gulping self, rushing for a team-high 88 yards, followed by Harris with 62. Dozier caught a late touchdown pass.
Regardless of the outcome, Potter knows his fan base's attention is all on the next game - at archrival Baylor next Friday night.
"There's no time to feel sorry for ourselves," he said.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com