Braxton Brown leads Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech past Montgomery 46-26

Written by: Matt Beltz on Sunday, October 29th, 2023. Follow Matt Beltz on Twitter.

ALMEDIA – The Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech Rams have gotten some big performances from junior running back Braxtyn Brown this year. Those performances have carried the Rams to some wins, but in other contests, a few breaks turned the momentum in the direction of their opponents, leading to some close losses. On Saturday, in their home finale, everything came together in the Rams’s favor

Mason Haught scored on a 36-yard touchdown run with 4:40 left in the game to make it a two-possession game, and Haught then recovered his second onside kick of the game. That was followed by a 48-yard touchdown pass by Caden Long to Axton Koser, and in less than 10 seconds, a one-possession game was turned into a three-score game.

That sequence, combined with Brown’s 330 rushing yards and five touchdowns, led the Rams to a 46-26 win over Montgomery.

“I’ve talked a lot this year with the team about how we don’t lose games, we learn from games. They’ve really learned this year. We had a one-point loss, a one-score loss, and we’ve learned from them,” said CMVT coach Mark Varner. “The kids haven’t hung their heads, we haven’t pointed fingers, we learned from the mistakes we made, and we’re not making them again. If something comes up, we don’t hang our heads. We move on and do what we need to do. They’ve bought in, and it shows on the field.

“Overall, I’m really proud of these guys. These last three weeks have been outstanding and they’re really in it for each other.”

CMVT compiled 503 yards of offense, but another key to the win was a lack of turnovers, as the Rams played turnover-free football. That was made a more important factor by Montgomery also not committing a turnover, as the Red Raiders had a 300-yard rusher of their own, with Coy Bryson running it 40 times for 357 yards and three touchdowns.

“On defense, we came out a little flat, but we made some adjustments at halftime, and I thought we came out and played a much better defensive game in the second half,” said Varner. “Offensively, we ran the ball well and we threw deep well all day. We threw some nice deep passes and some fourth-down passes on screens that moved the sticks, so I really liked what we did on offense.

Brown’s performance continued an impressive streak for the junior back as he ran for over 100 yards for the seventh straight contest and hit the 200-yard mark for the fifth time in his last six games. With another solid performance against Lower Moreland next week, he should reach the 2,000-yard mark despite missing most of two games.

With no turnovers by either team, it was all the more important to take advantage of each possession. The Rams came out on top in that category, as they scored on four of five possessions in the first half, and on three of four in the second. The two times they didn’t score, they were stopped on downs at the Montgomery 24 and 26-yard lines, respectively. The Rams didn’t punt once.

Montgomery, by contrast, punted just once on their first possession – pinning the Rams back at their own 4-yard line, but had the clock run out on them inside the 5-yard line at the end of the first half, and were also stopped on downs on their first second half drive.

Brown scored on the Rams’ first drive of the game with a 28-yard touchdown run less than two minutes into the game, capping a six-play, 55-yard drive in which he picked up all 55 of those yards.

After Montgomery pinned the Rams back at their own 4 on a punt after they reached the red zone but were pushed back by a pair of penalties, CMVT flipped the field when Brown ripped off a 60-yard touchdown run with 3:48 remaining in the quarter to put the Rams up 14-0.

The Red Raiders answered right back with two touchdowns of their own as they got a five-yard touchdown run by Brair Persing on the first play of the second quarter, and then, after stopping the Rams on downs at the Red Raider 24, got a 45-yard run by Bryson to flip the field, and then Bryson later finished with a 22-yard touchdown to tie the game.

The Rams came right back on their subsequent drive, as Brown wrapped up a short four-play drive with a 39-yard touchdown to put CMVT back up 20-14. But Bryson and the Red Raiders answered right back as he got loose for a 53-yard touchdown run on the first play of Montgomery’s ensuing drive to tie things back up, 20-20.

It then looked like the Red Raiders were going to force the Rams into a three-and-out on CMVT’s next drive, but the Rams converted a fourth-and-9 from their own 43 when Long hit Brown on a screen pass, and Brown turned it into a 27-yard gain. After a 23-yard pickup on the next play, Brown punched it in from seven yards out for his fourth touchdown of the half to open up a 28-20 lead.

Montgomery started its next drive around midfield and drove it down to the CMVT 5 with under 10 seconds to play in the half. Out of timeouts, the Red Raiders had a second-and-3, but picked up just two yards, and the clock ran out on the half.

CMVT recovered an onside kick as Haupt recovered his own kick to open the second half, but the Rams were stopped at the Montgomery 26 on downs. They answered on defense with a fourth down stop of their own as they ended an 11-play drive at the Ram 37 with 4:18 left in the third quarter, and the Rams would take advantage as they put together a seven-play, 68-yard drive capped by Brown’s fifth touchdown of the afternoon, a 36-yard scamper.

The Red Raiders answered with their longest drive of the day, a 12-play drive capped by Bryson’s third score of the day to narrow the deficit to one score at 34-26.

But from there, Haupt capped CMVT’s drive with his 36-yard touchdown and then recovered his second onside kick of the day.

Never one to shy away from his team attempting an onside kick in virtually any situation, Varner had it pay off for his team in a big way on Saturday as they were able to steal away two possessions in a game without any turnovers.

“I take some heat sometimes from behind me for my onside kicking,” Varner said with a smile, “But, if you want to call it analytics, stats, whatever, I look at them, I watch games, I go to other games on Fridays, and unless you have a kicker that can kick it down to the 5-yard line consistently, they’re running it back to the 40 or 45 every time. With our analytics, we see that when we kick it deep, they run it back farther than if we onside it.

“So, even if we don’t recover the onside, we get better or the same field position. We had this particular onside kick in at the beginning of the year and it worked well against Renaissance Academy, but we haven’t used it since. We were just kind of keeping it in our back pocket, but we saw that they were stacking the outside, so we sent it up the middle and after the first one, they didn’t adjust so we hit it again.”

Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech 46, Montgomery 26

Montgomery (1-9) 0 20 0 6 – 26

Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech (4-6) 14 14 6 12 – 46

First quarter

10:03 – (VT) Braxtyn Brown 28-yard run (pass failed), 6-55, 1:57

3:48 – (VT) Braxtyn Brown 60-yard run (Long run), 5-96, 2:19

Second quarter

11:55 – (M) Brair Persing 5-yard run (kick failed), 7-64, 3:53

6:57 – (M) Coy Bryson 22-yard run (Bryson run), 5-76, 2:20

4:48 – (VT) Braxtyn Brown 39-yard run (run failed), 4-56, 2:09

4:29 – (M) Coy Bryson 53-yard run (run failed), 1-53, :19

2:18 – (VT) Braxtyn Brown 7-yard run (Smith pass from Long), 6-58, 2:11

Third quarter

1:20 – (VT) Braxtyn Brown 36-yard run (pass failed), 7-68, 2:58

Fourth quarter

7:55 – (M) Coy Bryson 8-yard run (run failed), 12-60, 5:25

4:40 – (VT) Mason Haught 36-yard run (pass failed), 6-64, 3:15

4:33 – (VT) Axton Koser 48-yard pass from Caden Long (pass failed), 1-48, :07

Statistics
M VT
First downs 24 20

Rushes-net yards 55-439 32-374

Passing yardage 0 129

Passing 0-5-0-0 6-14-1-0

Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-0

Penalties-yards 7-58 3-15

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Montgomery: Coy Bryson (40-357-3), Brair Persing (11-74-1), Parker Persing (2-(-5)), Seth McClintock (1-7), Payton Hartman (1-6); CMVT: Braxtyn Brown (28-330-5), Mason Haught (4-44-1)

PASSING: Montgomery: Parker Persing (0-5-0-0-0); CMVT: Caden Long (6-14-129-1-0)

RECEIVING: Montgomery: None; CMVT: Axton Koser (5-102-1), Braxtyn Brown (1-27)

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