Ooltewah quarterback Kyrell Sanford takes the snap and prepares to hand off to running back Tyler Cargle during Friday's prep football game at Bradley Central. The Owls rallied from a 27-7 deficit early in the third quarter with 21 straight points for a nail-biting 28-27 win over the Bears.
photo by Stephen Kenney
CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Bradley Central went to the halftime locker room Friday with 21-7 lead and thinking Ooltewah would be deflated after Kyrell Sanford’s 48-yard touchdown pass to Sincere Quinn was negated by a procedure penalty with 12.1 seconds on the second-quarter clock.
On top of that, the Bears recovered a second-half pooch kickoff at Ooltewah’s 31 and zipped into the end zone on Dylan Standifer’s 5-yard TD strike to Saylor Clark, pushing the Bears’ lead to 27-7 with 11:06 left in the third quarter.
“That’s a bad feeling,” said Ooltewah quarterback Kyrell Sanford, who passed for 170 yards and two touchdowns, including a 16-yard strike to Fisher Perry that tied the game at 27-27 in the third quarter.
Braeden Haynes then kicked what proved to be the game-winning point-after.
“We had to keep pushing,” the quarterback continued amid the postgame celebration. “Half was pretty hard on us. We just had to come back out and start fighting. We overcame the TD they called back and got things going.”
Ooltewah (2-1, 1-0 Region 2-6A), which plays at East Hamilton next week, scored 21 straight points and pulled out a nail-biting 28-27 victory over Bradley Central (1-2, 0-1) on Jimmie Lovell Field.
“Anytime you’re down 21-7 at halftime you’re concerned,” Owls coach Scott Chandler said. “I told the guys if we come out and play with the intensity we had last week (a 35-34 loss to Science Hill), we’ll win the ballgame.
“Now, I didn’t know we’d come out and let Bradley score right off the bat by not handling that kickoff to start the third quarter. That wasn’t in the plan. The rest of the game followed suit.”
Not a single Ooltewah player touched the ball on the kickoff while an alert Bradley player smothered the ball and the Bears scored with less than a minute running off the clock.
After that, Ooltewah woke up and marched 67 yards in eight plays, Quinn rambled 20 yards for a touchdown to start the Owls’ swashbuckling comeback. Quinn rushed 11 times for 53 yards in the game.
Bradley was again forced to punt and Sanford quickly drove the Owls 76 yards in six plays and Quinn scored from the 2. Braeden Haynes kicked the extra point an Ooltewah was within 27-21.
The Owls’ defense, which held the Bears scoreless over the final 23 minutes, forced yet another punt and Ooltewah took over at its own 43.
Sanford went 4-for-4 in the 57-yard, seven-play drive, including a 16-yard TD pass to Fisher Perry. All of a sudden, the Owls stunned the Bears by grabbing a 28-27 lead and held it for the win.
“The way we rallied,” Chandler said, “will help us down the road. This lets me know we’ve got a lot of fight in us. We have overcome a lot of adversity from last year. When things go bad we can’t start pointing fingers.”
Ooltewah drove to the Bears’ 20 but failed to convert a fourth-and-5 from the 20 when Sanford was sacked for a 2-yard loss. Bradley Central, which leads the all-time series 18-4, gained possession at its own 31 with 35.6 seconds left in the game.
On first down, Standifer dropped back and whipped a zinger over the middle, but Ooltewah linebacker Malachi Quinn dropped back into coverage and intercepted the pass at the 43 and returned it deep into Bradley Central territory.
“I remember that play from practice and I perfected my defense for the play and it won us the ballgame,” he said. “If that guy got by the short guy in the defense, I had to get him. I dropped back, stepped in front of him and made the interception. We took a mean loss last week, but we beat a really good team tonight. I’m tired, man.”
Said Chandler, “Bradley had been hitting that guy all night and we tried to bait them into throwing it again and Malachi made a great play on the ball; we had to stop that play in the second half.”
Malachi Quinn, Sincere’s brother, was asked what he thought of the Owls’ comeback.
“Nobody should ever give up,” he said. “I played bad in the first half, but came back in the second and made some changes. That’s what we had to do.”
Standifer, who went 17 for 27 with 187 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions, directed the Bears on an opening drive, hitting Saylor Clark on a 30-yard TD pass less than three minutes into the game.
On Bradley’s next possession, Standifer was picked off by Ooltewah’s Chase Sanders, a junior defensive back. Standifer then directed two straight scoring drives. He ran for a 1-yard touchdown and watched Parker Johnson ramble 35 yards for a TD that gave the Bears a 21-7 advantage.
When the Bears scored quickly in the third to open a 20-point lead, it looked like they were well on their way to a second-straight win over the Owls, who had won three in a row before the two teams took a two-year hiatus. Ooltewah also won six in a row against Bradley from 2004-09, outscoring them 259-24.
But the two rivals are in a new Class 6A era now.
“We were going through the motions in the first half tonight,” Chandler said. “Teams in this league can’t walk out there and think they’re going to win. We have no right to thank we can do that. Every game in this league is going to be a dogfight and we have to be ready every week.”
Sincere Quinn and Tyler Cargle combined for 73 yards on 17 carries. The diminutive Cargle had 20 yards. Cargle showed plenty of grit despite being outsized by every other player on the field.
“He’s not much bigger than a hiccup,” Chandler said. “But along with Sincere, we’ve got a pretty good one-two punch. Sincere’s got tendinitis in his right knee and it’s still tender.”
Sanford, who completed 19 of 26 passes with the two touchdowns, also rushed for 42 yards. He was seemingly scrambling and rambling on play after play late in the third and throughout the fourth quarter.
The one thing he was most pleased with, however, was Malachi Quinn’s interception.
“Oooooh we,” he said. “You heard the noise. That play took the heat off us and gave us the game. He made a great play on that ball. I’m glad he picked it off and stayed inbounds and kept the clock running.”
Ooltewah ran one “victory formation” play and the game ended.
It was a disappointing loss for the Bears, who take on Knoxville Catholic next week.
“We just kind of thought we had the game when we got the 27-7 lead,” said Ashton Boyd, who caught three passes for 21 yards. “We were focused on Ooltewah, but they came out and got after us in the second half and it showed on the scoreboard.”
Clark led the Bears with seven receptions for 87 yards and touchdowns covering 30 and 5 yards. Ethan Vaughn snagged 3 passes for 59 yards.
Scoring Summary
Ooltewah 7 0 21 0 – 28
Bradley Central 7 14 6 0 – 27
First Quarter
BC – Saylor Clark 30 pass from Dylan Standifer (Clay Shoemaker kick), 9:42
OOL – Tahj Cargle 12 pass from Kyrell Sanford (Braeden Haynes kick),
Second Quarter
BC – Standifer 1 run (Shoemaker kick), 7:52
BC – Parker Johnson 35 run (Shoemaker kick), 1:09
Third Quarter
BC – Clark 5 pass from Standifer (pass failed), 11:06
OOL – Sincere Quinn 20 run (Haynes kick), 8:33
OOL – Quinn 2 run (Haynes kick), 5:07
OOL – Fisher Perry 16 pass from Sanford (Haynes kick), 0.7
YARDSTICK
OOL BC
First Downs 22 17
Rushes-Yds 173 106
Passing Yards 170 215
Comp-Att-Int 19-26-0 17-27-2
Plys-Total Yds 63-321 64-343
Fumbles Lost 0-0 0-0
Punts-Avg 4-37.0 4-40.0
Penalties Yds 8-57 10-66
INDIVIDUALS
RUSHING – Ooltewah: Sincere Quinn 11-53, Kyrell Sanford 7-42, Tahj Cargle 6-20, Rest of team 5-58; Bradley Central: Parker Johnson 3-38, Ricky McCleary 12-35, Dylan Standifer 11-33.
PASSING – Ooltewah: Sanford 19-26-0-170; Bradley Central: Standifer 17-27-2-187, McCleary 1-1-0-28.
RECEIVING – Ooltewah: Cargle 9-66, S. Quinn 5-42, Tylan Cargle 1-31, Fisher Perry 2-16, Moss 2-15.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)