With just a little over a minute left in the contest, the Whippets, who trailed Northeast Lauderdale 28-21, looked poised to tie it up from the Trojan six-yard line. One illegal procedure later on third down, the Whippets found themselves backed up to the 21-yard line.
Two plays later, quarterback Clark Dean's pinpoint pass into the end zone was dropped by a Whippet receiver and the Trojans escaped with the win.
The Whippets scored first on a Stefan Harmon 10-yard run with 8:15 left in the first quarter, but the Trojans answered four minutes later on a three-yard to even things up at 7-7.
“I do think the kids played with good effort and played well enough to win,” said Whippet head coach Chad Peterson. “We just have to figure out what little things to do to try and make the games and the end go our way. We need to be more efficient in our red zone offense and score a little more when we are down in that area. We did some things better from week one and we will continue to work on some of the same things like protecting the football.”
Northeast took the lead 14-7 late in the second quarter but would trail Kosy 15-14 at the half after a 37-yard touchdown run from freshman running back Bobo Miller. A bad snap on the PAT led to a Will Cook pass to Walker Yuille for the two-point conversion.
After a scoreless third, the Trojans punched it in from three yards out to take a 21-15 lead with 9:40 left in regulation.
Two minutes later the Trojans would score again on a short 35-yard drive after a Whippet fumble, pushing the lead to 28-15. With 4:32 left on the game clock, Stefan Harmon scored what would be the last points for the Whippets on a five-yard keeper cutting into the Trojan lead 28-21. After a defensive stop, the Whippets forced a Trojan punt that set Kosy up 41 yards from pay dirt and a potential game-tying touchdown and PAT with just less than two minutes remaining before the drive stalled on a penalty and a dropped pass.
The Whippets (0-2) will be off next week but will return to action on September 9, when they host Holmes County Central at 7 p.m.
The Whippet offense churned out 308 yards on the night while Northeast accumulated just 200 yards of total offense. The Whippets rushed for 278 yards on 38 carries and were led by Kadarius Banks, who had 115 yards on 12 carries and one catch for 18 yards. Harmon rushed the football 11 times for 89 yards with two touchdowns and Zavier Miller scored his first career touchdown on eight carries for 63 yards. Dean was 2-of-8 through the air for 30 yards with an interception and Lane Outlaw had one catch for 12 yards.
“It’ll be a good week for us to get some nicks and bruises taken care of, but I think overall we are pretty healthy,” concluded Peterson. “We do have a few odds and ends to fix and we will try to do everything from a coaching standpoint to keep them ready and try to keep it positive so we can keep the ‘train on the tracks.’ There’s not really any frustration, from the coaches anyway, and our biggest task is to let the kids understand that everything is still fine and that we have outplayed our first two opponents. I believe they will respond well and we will come out ready for Holmes Central.”
