Tre’von McCarter sneaks through and jets toward the goal scoring Woodlan’s first touchdown of the night.
The Woodlan Football team has been on their longest winning streak ever and this year has been stupendous for these boys. After defeating Central Noble by a large margin last week, the Warriors stayed home to play Eastside for the second game of sectionals.
The Blazers are a hot team this year and came into this tournament match-up with only 2 losses and one handed to them by the Warriors in the opening game on August 21. Their latest game was against Bluffton in game one of sectionals, crushing the Tigers in a 40-0 match. The only other team to defeat Eastside was Garrett on September 18.
Woodlan came into the game undefeated. This top notch group has taken a few hits, but none that have stopped them from winning a game. Out of the last three games, the Warriors have only won by one point (includes this match).
The game began with Eastside taking control of the game. They were handily pushing the Warriors around and it wasn’t looking good. The first quarter had the Blazers scoring the first touchdown of the night by Senior Trenton Huff and the point after giving them a 7-0 lead. The second quarter, Huff picked up another touchdown for the Butler team. The point after was no good. Before the end of the first quarter, Woodlan finally got on the board with a touchdown by Tre’von McCarter as the team faked a punt, and ended up running the ball through defense successfully to the goal.
The second half went quick. The third quarter was a little depressing as the Warriors lost possession to an interception. They luckily kept Eastside from scoring. Psychologically, the Blazers had the game. Woodlan players were upset with one other for not playing well until Jackson Rhoads made several exceptional plays. This was the turning point mentally for the home team. He gained quite a few yards on several plays when he picked up a minor injury from a tackle, and got the ball to just a handful of yards from the field goal. Mitchell VanBrocklin took the ball in for the touchdown on the next play and with the point after by Quentin Graber, it put the Warriors one point over their opponents with 8 minutes left in the game.
What happened right at the end is just mind-boggling. The score was still the same at 13-14 and Woodlan was in the lead. Eastside got one first down after another until they were only 3 yards from the goal line. Less than a minute was on the clock and instead of kicking the ball for 3 point field goal and easily winning the game, the center decided to snap the ball to the quarterback and go for the touchdown. It turned out to be a disaster for the Blazers. The ball fumbled and Woodlan’s Malik Murray grabbed the loose ball and the clock stopped with 8 seconds left. Nothing was left for Eastside as they were knocked out of the tournament.
Malik Murray grabs the loose ball and ends the Eastside football season.
Following the game Coach Sherwood Haydock gave a talk to the players. “It only takes one point to win.” He says. They proved that tonight. The competition is only going to get tougher the further they go in the tournament. They cannot expect the other teams to make the same mistake in the future tournament games.
The Warriors will play Friday at home again against Whitko Wildcats. The Wildcats started the tournament with a losing record, but have made an incredible comeback and are now entering the sectional championship with a 6-5 record.
More pictures Here.
