By Katie McElvy
The seven game winning streak for the Chambers Academy Rebels was snapped on Friday night as they visited the AAA Glenwood Gators. The Rebel defense was able to handle the Gators at the line of scrimmage with many stops on the ground, but the Gator air attack was too much for Chambers as Glenwood quickly went up 0-21 in the first half.
Chambers was able to move the ball only posting one three and out in the first half. Their most promising drive came late in the second quarter. Quarterback Kole Baker got things started with a 20 yard pass to Evan Arwood. Braxton Yerta followed with a 15 yard gain on the ground. Baker launched another pass to Arwood for 22 yards, and Luke Tarver added 10 yards on the ground on the next play. After a pass interference call in the endzone, Tarver was able to punch it in for the score. The Noah Hand PAT was good to put the Rebels on the board 7-21 going into half time.
However, he rest of the night was all Gators as they managed to score 27 unanswered points in the second half to make the final score 7-48 in favor of Glenwood.
“Obviously, things didn’t go as planned Friday night, but overall I thought we learned some things that will help us in the playoffs. I knew Glenwood was a really good team, and they presented us some problems from a matchup standpoint. I thought we played the run pretty well for the most part. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively which really put us in a bind,” commented Head Coach Jason Allen.
This loss puts the Rebels at 7-3 on the regular season with their only losses coming to Lee-Scott and Glenwood, who are the number one and two seeds going into AISA AAA playoffs. The other Chambers’ loss was to First Presbyterian Day School, a member of the GISA in class AAAA.
Chambers will begin their playoff run on Friday night as they host the Escambia Academy Cougars. They are no strangers to the Cougars as the two teams have met up in the last two playoffs. In 2020, Chambers beat Escambia for the AISA AA State Championship. In 2021, Escambia beat the Rebels in the semi-finals. If Chambers is able to best Escambia, the Rebels will host the winner of the Macon-East/Clarke Prep game for the second round, but everyone in the football arena knows that teams must take games one at a time, and Coach Allen is no different.
“All of our goals are in front of us, and we are at home in the playoffs. We have some things to work on, and we will be ready to start a postseason run.”
Kick off is set for 7:00 at Torbert-Allen Field. Photo by Taphne Nelson