A tipped pass here, a fumble there and the St. Frances football team was able to avoid a rare second loss of the season.
After failing to score on two of its three trips to the red zone in the first half Friday at Under Armour Stadium against the Hun School out of New Jersey, St. Frances opened the second half with seven points on its first possession on a fortuitous tipped pass caught by Jaylen Burrell in the end zone.
But after that two-score lead was trimmed to six points early in the fourth quarter, a 70-yard fumble return by Duyon Forkpa Jr. broke open the game as the Panthers cruised to a 29-7 victory.
“This is the type of game that can sneak up on you,” said Panthers coach Messay Hailemariam, whose squad improved to 7-1. “We’ve had such great success the last three weeks, a 66-point win, a 37-point win, and a 60-point win, so I knew this was a type of trap game and they’re a good, solid team. They play football the right way. [Our players] learned through it and in the second half, did a great job and then they finished strong, and that’s all I can ask for.”
Finishing is exactly what the Panthers did on their first drive of the second half, ending with that lucky tipped pass that landed in the hands of Burrell in the end zone after a Hun defender got a hand on it while draping himself all over the intended receiver. Panthers quarterback Jae’Oyn Williams, who totaled 224 combined yards through the air and on the ground, completed five passes for 44 yards to fuel the drive that provided a 13-0 lead.
“I thought it was going to be a pick, so I was ready to start running to chase him down but my other receiver ran a slant and was aware of the ball and caught it,” Williams said. “A lot of luck on that one, but sometimes you’ve got to get lucky in a game when things aren’t really going your way.”
Hun, using a 58-yard punt to pin the Panthers inside their own 5-yard line and then a ensuing poor punt by St. Frances, trimmed the deficit to 13-7 on a 6-yard pass from Lukas Prock to Amir Hogans on a rollout to the Panthers’ sideline to cap a short 23-yard drive with 11:53 left in the game.
Hun looked poised to do some further damage offensively after recovering the ensuing kickoff, but Forkpa scooped up a fumble on a collision in the Hun’s backfield and rumbled some 70 yards for a touchdown and an eventual 21-7 lead following a 2-point pass from Williams to running back Jaelyn Burke with 10:14 remaining in the fourth quarter.
“Really, I just knew we needed to make a play, get some momentum,” Forkpa said. “So I told the defense, `We need a turnover,’ and I delivered.”
The Panthers essentially put the game away on their next drive that ended in a 7-yard slant from Williams to Samir Edwards and then a 2-point run by Williams for a 29-7 lead with 5:18 left. Antonio Smith completely ended any hopes of a Hun’s comeback with a interception with 2:42 remaining. The Panthers ran out the clock with a lengthy drive to the Raiders’ 14.
“We really couldn’t run the ball, so we decided to put their linebackers in conflict, pass the ball on the edge, and get a little runs in the middle, and a couple of QB runs out of the empty formation, and the pass game, a couple of scrambles, and I was able to punch the ball in the end zone,” Williams said. “We got a lot of quick game stuff going and was able to move the ball.”
St. Frances avoided early disaster in the form of a fumble on the opening kickoff, a short ball mishandled in the air, and drove the length of the field before being stopped at the Hun 9 as a swing pass to Jesse Legree went no where.
The game evolved into a defensive battle for the rest of the first quarter and part of the second until the Panthers scored on a 5-yard run by Burke with 5:57 left in the half. A poor punt set up St. Frances at the Hun 25. Six plays later, Burke took the ball up the middle, ran out of some arm tackles, and then bounced it outside for the touchdown. The Panthers were stopped just short of the end zone on the conversion attempt to keep the game at 6-0.
St. Frances put together a strong drive to end first half, moving the ball to the Hun 8, but three straight incompletions kept the advantage at six points.
While the St. Frances offense struggled to convert on two trips to the red zone, the Panthers’ defense held the Raiders to just 37 total yards, including a trio of sacks.
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