An undefeated surprise at BHS

Bruins look toward playoffs after going 8-0

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Baldwin’s varsity football team has played eight regular-season games this school year and has won eight times, earning the top seed in the Conference I playoffs, which begin Friday.

Any time a team goes undefeated is special, but Baldwin was predicted to be a middle-of-the-pack team coming into the season. It was seeded eighth out of 16 teams in the preseason, and head coach Steve Carroll thought that was fair.

When Conference I coaches met last spring to discuss seeding for the upcoming season, Carroll said his team had a lot of question marks. He knew that two of his returning players, seniors Paul Nosworthy and Kadeem Langhorne, could play with anyone, but there was uncertainty as to who else would step up. The Bruins went 3-5 last season and saw many key players graduate in June, so Carroll wasn’t thinking his team would be a powerhouse this year.

“I thought this team would be 4-4,” he said of his current roster. “I thought this team was just as good as last year’s before injuries. Obviously I was wrong, and it’s not the first time, and won’t be the last time.”

“There was no way in my wildest dreams we’d ever go 8-0,” he added. This is one time Carroll is ecstatic to be wrong.

He credits the team’s success to a strong offseason workout regimen and the addition of some students to the roster who didn’t play last year, including senior wide receiver Jared Warner, who also plays cornerback and returns punts and kicks. Warner’s speed poses a problem for opposing teams, and effectively sealed Baldwin’s win over Freeport in the Bruins’ Homecoming game when he returned a kickoff 80 yards to put Baldwin up by 14 points.

Langhorne, who plays linebacker and guard, said he and his teammates made working out in the offseason a point of emphasis, adding that they were “bullied” by bigger teams last year. “As the number eight seed coming in, we were expected to lose a lot of games,” said Langhorne, a three-year varsity player. “So just winning games, home or away, has been big.”

Senior running back and cornerback Matt Eberhart said he felt good about the team coming into the season. “We were ranked eighth, but we knew we were better than that,” he said. “We weren’t going to let that define us. We were going to try and prove we were better than that.”

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