COTTAGE GROVE – Creswell and Cottage Grove hadn’t played football together in nearly 20 years. So it was no big surprise when both teams came out swinging, delivering early haymakers Friday night.
Creswell landed the first big punch – a 75-yard touchdown run around right end by junior Hunter Mustin on the Bulldogs’ first snap.
Cottage Grove answered with a quick counterpunch, though. John Paulo Delima found Trevor Cooper two plays later with a 32-yard touchdown pass. The punches kept landing, and the Lions pulled away late for a 49-14 victory in the first meeting of the two schools since 2005.
“We’re going in the right way – most people learn more from their disappointments and losses than their successes, and the kids have bought into what we’re doing, and we’re seeing success,” Cottage Grove coach Steve Turner said after his team improved to 3-0.
“We’re happy, but we’re not content – it’s only three games – we’re not good enough that we can look past anybody.”
After Mustin’s 75-yard run, Turner wasn’t sure how his team would react.
He got his answer quickly.
“If that happened 12 months ago we’d have gone in the tank, so we’ve matured a little bit and now we know we can handle that,” Turner said.
Brayden Bauer (9) Photo: Tuck / Cottage Grove High School
Turner, in his second year coaching the Lions, had won state titles at Cascade and Mountain View. When he took over at Cottage Grove, the Lions had lost 26-of-27 games.
“We’re slowly getting back to full strength – John played a great game and made some big throws – Cooper had a nice catch on our first score. We had a lot of guys who stepped up for us.”
Trevor Cooper (30). Photo: Tuck / Cottage Grove High School
Creswell made it a one-score game, 22-14, on Mustin’s 7-yard run up the middle with 2:02 left in the third quarter. That’s when the Bulldogs seemingly hit the wall.
The Lions scored twice before the end of the quarter, first on a 47-yard sweep left by Clayton Dewitt. Then, after a fumble recovery by CG’s Otis Hitt, Dewitt ran for a 41-yard TD, this time with a nice cutback to the right. Suddenly, it was 35-14.
Clayton Dewitt (24). Photo: Tuck / Cottage Grove High School
The game ended with freshman Isiah Grogan – one of three Grogran brothers on the team – breaking free for an 84-yard touchdown run.
“That was an awesome way to start,” Creswell coach Scott Worsham said of Mustin’s long run. “It was hard to get yards after that. It was exciting to come back and make it an 8-point game – one factor was that our star player Mustin kept cramping up.”
The bottom line is that the Bulldogs are 0-3 and Worsham said things need to change.
“We have to watch film and figure out what we can do differently,” Worsham said. “We can’t give up 40 points a game; guys are missing assignments. Maybe we have to replace a couple of guys. And offensively we have to move the ball and find the end zone a little more often.”
Cottage Grove athletic director Garrett Bridgens said he hopes the rivalry will continue for years to come. The two schools will play at Creswell next year, then there will be another round of reclassification.
“We used to be in a league with them, so we played a lot before 2005,” Bridgens said. “Then in ’06 we went into a league and that was the end of it at that point. It’s pretty special to have this game again. Cottage Grove is playing a classification down this year, so a lot of things factor into that. If you win a playoff game or go to the playoffs, the football committee for the OSAA will consider bumping you up again. It’s really special that we’re getting this opportunity to play this school that’s just 8 or 9 miles up the road from us.
Gavin Grogan (3) and Nicholas Walley (76). Photo: Tuck / Cottage Grove High School
“Me being a Cottage Grove graduate and playing against Creswell growing up all my life, it’s pretty cool getting to play against them. We play them in other sports. Creswell is a great town, a great sports program. They have a rich, storied history of amazing athletics so it’s fun to be able to compete against them.”
Creswell AD Brandon Standridge concurred, that it would be nice to keep this thing going.
“We play them in pretty much every other sport,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have a blossoming rivalry.”
