Tigers Bite Down On Another Regional Title
The Oscar Smith Tigers Won The Regional Championship On Friday In A Hard Fought Game With Ocean Lakes. The Tigers Will Face Oakton This Next Saturday In Vienna, Virginia For The Right To Play For A State Championship.....Listen Live To The Game Right Here Online At GamedayMagazine.com....
Photo By: Tom Casella / Gameday Magazine
Photo By: Tom Casella / Gameday Magazine
Photo By: Tom Casella / Gameday Magazine
CHESAPEAKE, VA - As the last seconds ticked off the Virginia Beach Sportsplex scoreboard on Friday night, Oscar Smith (OS) coach Rich Morgan couldn't bring himself to look.
His squad had gone to war with a pesky Ocean Lakes (OL) team in the finals of the Eastern Region Division Six playoffs, repeatedly rushing (literally, in the person of Perry Jones) out to big leagues, only to see the Dolphins make their way back into the game. With three minutes left in the game, Morgan's men had had a 28-7 lead; now, in the final minute, they were clinging to a 28-21 margin.
As OS quarterback Phillip Sims took a snap near midfield on third down, Morgan glanced at his team. He looked over at the stands. Then he finally pushed his pupils at the board.
"Line up!" Morgan shouted to his players as he suddenly resembled a jubilant drill sergeant who couldn't bring himself to crack a grin. "We're regional champs - again!"
All through the week, Jones assured, reassured, and re-re-reassured his line that he'd be there for them if they were there for him.
"I've been telling them all week that I know that they're going to block hard for me," said Jones, who recently signed to attend the University of Virginia. "If they gave me everything they had, I'd give them everything I've got."
He made good on the promise early on, barging a yard for the game's first score less than four minutes in. With three minutes left in the quarter, Sims hit Tim Smith for 25 yards to reach the OL 10. On the next play, Jones scurried around the left end for his second score and a 14-0 lead.
The OS defense held, and Sims and Jones went back to work. Facing a third-and-10 at his own 25, Sims handed off to Jones, who gave the ball back. Sims ran toward the right sideline, the suddenly uncorked a loft to the Dolphin 34, where a diving Smith fell into it.
Jones rushed for 19 yards over the next three plays, and caught a seven-yard strike from Sims to give the Tigers a first down at the five. But an intentional grounding penalty pushed OS back to the 16, and a faked field goal attempt failed, giving OL the ball.
Neither team managed a first down on its next possession, and OL regained the pigskin at its own 33 with 40 seconds to play. OS was called for roughing the passer, and LaFonte Throughgood (no quarterback has ever had a more appropriate last name) tossed two screen passes to Justin Hunter to reach the Tiger 29 with 14 seconds left.
Then Hunter outran the Tiger defense down the right sideline, and Throughgood lofted him a touchdown pass to cut the lead in half at the half.
Five minutes into the second half, the Jones show began anew, as he carried 33 yards on three plays to reach the Dolphin 42. Askew made it to the 33, and Jones to the 26.
The runners took a breather as Sims zipped a pair of passes to Smith for 16 yards, and Jones made it into the endzone from two yards away for a 21-7 lead and some much-needed breathing room.
"We felt like we dominated the first half, and then we gave them a touchdown, which we shouldn't have done," Morgan said. "We stopped them, and then we scored. That put us in the driver's seat."
Walter Davis tried to get OL back in the chair, ripping off a 40-yard run to the Tiger 25. A face-mask penalty upped OL to the 13, and Davis and Throughgood rushed to the seven.
A third-down pass fell incomplete, and OL called timeout. On fourth down, Throughgood rolled out and charged toward the right end, but Askew was there to greet him, knocking him out of bounds far short of the goal line or the first down marker.
Back in control, Jones charged 55 yards to the OL 36. A pass interference penalty moved the Tigers to the 11, and Jones rolled through the middle for his team's final score with 8:25 to play.
Still, the Tigers learned that, as baseball legend Yogi Berra so diplomatically put it, "It ain't over till it's over." So when Davis was stopped short of a first down at the OL 30 with six minutes to play, it looked like the contest was complete. So when the Dolphins quickly got the ball back two minutes later, the Tigers didn't really stir.
When Throughgood tossed a 15-yard touchdown score to Shemarko Thomas with 2:23 on the clock, the OS sideline started to get riled. When Justin Godfrey recovered an onside kick, things got more uptight. When Throughgood shot another scoring pass to Thomas at the 43-second mark, the Sportsplex came alive.
Another onside kick bounced toward the right sideline, and toward a group of Tigers. They couldn't corral it, and Godfrey leaped into the pile and wrestled it away, seemingly giving OL a shot at a miracle. But the officials ruled that OL had touched the ball before it went the required 10 yards, giving OS possession, and its second consecutive regional title.
"This game is never over to matter what that thing up there says, or what those people up there think!" Morgan roared to his team, indicating the scoreboard and the crowd. "It is never over.
"These are the greatest kids in the school," he said later, in a considerably more docile mood. "They represent Oscar Smith well. We didn't play our greatest football game today, but I'm proud of them. They fought, and they didn't give up. They fought hard, they played hard, and that's what it's all about. That's what life's all about. We'll fix that next week.
Next weekend, the Tigers head north for another shot at the state semifinal game that slipped away from them last year in a mistake-prone 24-21 loss to Westfield. They'll visit the winner of today's Oakton-Chantilly game.
"Coming off of last season pushes us that much harder," Jones said. "We're going to go into practice next week and hit hard."
Phoebus 14, Lake Taylor 0
Like OS, Phoebus toughed out a divisional title Friday night, beating Lake Taylor 14-0 for the Division Five title at Harbor Park, the Phantoms' ninth shutout of a 13-0 season and the Titans' first loss of the year.
Like OS, the Phantoms will be looking for redemption next week, as they go for a rematch with Stone Bridge, which knocked them out of the state playoffs last season.
But unlike the Tigers, Phoebus gets to kick back and wait for Friday's game, as it's being played on their home gridiron of Hampton's Darling Stadium.
