Red Raven Football Downs the Broncbusters of Garden City 30-21, Ravens Move to #4 in NJCAA Rankings

Garden City, Kan. -  The #6 NJCAA Ranked Coffeyville Community College Red Raven Football Team traveled to Garden City Kansas, and defeated the Broncbusters of Garden City 30-21.  With their sixth victory in a row, the Red Ravens improved their 2022 overall record to 8-2.

The team stats from the game were not pretty for the Red Ravens.  Coffeyville had a total of 123 yards offensively in the game to Garden City's 441.  The Red Ravens had 9 first downs to Garden City's 26.  Coffeyville's time of possession was 21 minutes to the Broncbuster's 38 minutes.  However, after all of that, not all stats are created equal.  Score...Coffeyville 30 Garden City 21

Special teams and timely defense were the stories of this victory.   

Coffeyville's special teams had been solid all year, but in this game, they were the difference.  The Red Ravens opened the scoring in the game with freshman defensive back Jabin Ford rushing through the left side of a Garden City 31-yard field goal attempt to reach out and block the field goal attempt.  Ford then scooped up the block and raced 77 yards to score the special teams' touchdown for Coffeyville. This was Ford's second field goal block return score in as many weeks.  The Forrest Taylor extra point was good and Coffeyville held a 7-0 lead at the 6:37 mark of the first quarter.

Early in the second quarter, Coffeyville's special teams scored two more points as freshman DB Kameron Pearson blocked a Garden City punt which then rolled out of the back of the end zone for a safety to give the Red Ravens a 9-0 lead early in the second quarter.  After the rest of the second quarter went scoreless, Coffeyville went into halftime with a 9-0 lead.

Garden City opened the second half with a long 9-play scoring drive topped off by a 19-yard touchdown pass to pull within 9-7.  

Coffeyville answered with a 37-yard scamper by Raven sophomore running back Jacqez Barkdale which took the ball down to the Garden City 3-yard line.  Red Raven freshman running back Romal Webb took the hand-off for the last 3 yards to score the touchdown.  Taylor's PAT was good and the Ravens had extended the score to 16-7.

Coffeyville extended the pressure early in the fourth quarter as Red Raven sophomore quarterback JR Martin dropped back to pass and scrambled 14 yards to the end zone to put Coffeyville up 23-7 early in the fourth quarter.  

The Broncbusters cut the deficit with a long 60-yard touchdown pass at  9:56 of the fourth quarter.  A 2-point try failed for Garden City and Coffeyville lead 23-13.

Raven quarterback Martin scored his second scramble touchdown of the day with a beautiful 23-yard rush touchdown to put Coffeyville up 30-13 with 6:30 remaining in the game.

Garden City scored their last touchdown of the game on a 21-yard pass touchdown with three minutes left in the game. 

Time ran out and Coffeyville had the 30-21 victory.

Sophomore defensive back Bishop Fitzgerald was Coffeyville's defensive player of the game as he registered three interceptions on the day with his last two coming in the fourth quarter to snuff out a Garden City comeback bid.

At the posting of this story, the Coffeyville Community College Red Ravens have moved up to the #4 spot in the latest NJCAA Football Rankings.  The top 4 teams in the final NJCAA rankings will play in a playoff for the NJCAA National Championship.  However, the final rankings will not come out until next week (Nov 21st) as the regular season schedule runs through this coming weekend.  Coffeyville and the other teams in the KJCCC do not play this upcoming weekend, however, some of the schools in the rankings are finishing up their schedules this coming weekend.  Schools in the rankings playing this coming week include #5 Snow, #6 New Mexico Military, and #11 Kilgore. 

After next week's NJCAA rankings are announced, the #4 team will travel to #1 to play and the #3 ranked team will travel to the #2 ranked team to play in NJCAA National Semifinal games.  Those Semifinal games should take place the first weekend in December.  The winners of the two Semifinal games will face each other in the NJCAA National Championship game slated for Wednesday, December 14th in Little Rock Arkansas.

The Full Week #12 (Nov 14th) NJCAA Football rankings can be found by clicking HERE.