HARRISONBURG - Brookville football coach Bobby Johnson normally is fairly reserved with his comments, but Friday night at James Madison University's Bridgeforth Stadium, he could be excused for exploding.

"Were we sticking it to them or not?," Johnson said to a friend after the Bees pounded out 291 yards on the ground and dominated the clock in beating pass-oriented John Handley 14-6 to capture the Group AA, Division 3 Championship for the first football title in Brookville history.

The Bees (11-3), underdogs to the Judges (12-2), who had been averaging 31 points and nearly 400 yards per game, not only slowed down Handley's sophisticated West Coast passing attack, but showed the losers how smash-mouth football is played in the Seminole District.

Handley managed just 80 yards rushing on 19 attempts and senior quarterback Lang Campbell passed for 160 yards, 70 of them coming on a touchdown catch and run by Robert Fowler on the first play of the game.

On Handley's second play from scrimmage, Campbell hit Adam Dutton on a 33-yard pass to the Brookville 47, but the Bees' defense stiffened. Campbell hit just seven of his last 18 passes for 57 yards as the Bees were willing to give up short ones underneath the coverage.

"They're not used to anybody coming out the sticking it down their throats," said Johnson, who led the Bees to a championship in his second year as head coach. It was Johnson's first state title after four failed attempts as an assistant coach (three at E.C. Glass and one at Brookville in 1996).

Brookville, which finished third in the Seminole District behind Amherst and Jefferson Forest, took a lot of starch out of the Judges with a 17-play, 70-yard drive to start the second half.

The march took 8:40 off the clock and was culminated by a one-yard TD run by junior tailback Dejon Kennedy, who rushed for 190 yards on 39 carries and scored two touchdowns.

Kennedy, the 6-foot-1, 165-pounder, carried 10 times for 42 yards on the drive that gave the Bees a 14-6 lead after Chris Cumberland's extra-point kick.

During the drive, Brookville converted on a fourth-and-one at midfield and a fourth-and-two at the Handley 31.

"That may be one of the greatest drives I've ever been around," said Johnson. "All week, we told the guys that's what we wanted to do - pound it right at them."

Handley coach Todd Hill said his staff tried to make some defensive adjustments at halftime, "and they worked for a few plays, but Brookville did a good job of double-teaming and trapping.

"They have the big fullback (Russell Lomax, who had 54 yards on 13 carries) and then they counter with the halfback (Kennedy). It was just power football like we haven't seen this year. The key was we couldn't stop them on those third and fourth down plays."

After the long Brookville drive, the Judges tried to counter with the arm of Campbell who moved them from their own nine to the Brookville 46. However, Bees linebacker Martellus Braxton picked off a pass intended for Dutton.

Brookville, which held the ball for 18½ minutes (out of 24) in the second half, was stopped at the Handley 43 with 9:42 left. However, the Bees defense, led by Josh Daniels, Tarik Ghriri, Matt Burch, Braxton and Lomax continued to make life miserable for Campbell.

Handley reached the Brookville 45 with 7:05 left, but on fourth and 12 the Bees had every receiver covered and a scrambling Campbell was held to a three-yard gain.

The Judges got the ball back with 2:58 left at their 19, but Braxton intercepted a pass after it tipped off the hands of Daniel Vipperman.

"I knew I had to get a big play to end this game," said Braxton. "They hadn't seen the Seminole District play football and we had to come down here and show them what we were made of."

The Bees, who didn't have a fumble all night, kept the ball for 2½ minutes despite being called for their only three penalties of the night. Handley had one last shot at it's 32 with 25 seconds to go, but Campbell saw three passes fall incomplete and was sacked for a five-yard loss on the last play of the game.

"They contained us with those ends and we couldn't get him (Campbell) outside," said Hill.

Brookville, which had a 72-39 edge in offensive plays, kept its composure after Handley scored quickly on the first play of the game. 

The Bees, who had to punt on their first three possessions, finally won the battle of field position midway through the second quarter and made the Judges pay.

Lavar Anthony returned a Campbell punt 23 yards to the Handley 37 yard line as the Bees' fans started to roar. Kennedy's 18-yard gallop took Brookville to the Handley 16 and two plays later, he burst through for an 11-yard scoring run. Cumberland's kick gave the Bees a 7-6 lead with 5:34 left in the first half.

While Kennedy was getting most of the air time with television after the game, he was quick to insist that his offensive line (Ghriri, Brett Phelps, Ben Martin and Gary Straw) deserved the attention.

"I don't take any of the credit because without their key blocks, I don't know where we would have been," said Kennedy. "This is all family right here and everybody did their job."

As for the defense, Brookville back Lamar Kennedy said, "Our front four made out job a lot easier. At the half, coach said we had to play out keys. They surprised us at first, but we kept out composure. Martellus made two big plays (interceptions) and I should have had two but I dropped them."

Phelps, a 6-0, 217-pound offensive lineman, said the Bees' focus all week was, "to stick it down their throats. Nobody can stop us when we put out minds to it. We just kept jamming it down their throats in the second half until they finally gave it to us."

The physical play of the Bees ultimately won out over the finesse-minded Judges.