WILLIAMSPORT – Sometimes, football comes down to a game of the haves vs. the have nots.
On Thursday, Williamsport found a way to have just enough to get by, while South Hagerstown didn’t have enough to pull out a win.
On one key play – a 59-yard touchdown connection to David Grayton from Gabriel Parker on the third play of the second half – gave the Wildcats a two-score advantage to nurse en route to a 21-12 Washington County football victory.
That was huge, especially since the Rebels failed to score on three different possessions in the red zone. Two of them occurred when South got inside the Wildcats 20 at the end of the first half. South also had a 50-yard TD run by Josiah Davis called back by a holding penalty.
The failures allowed Williamsport to lead 7-0 at the half.
“We sputtered … that’s the problem. We sputtered every time,” said South coach Juwuane Sandridge. “That’s exactly right. That’s the ball game.”
It would have been perceived as a moral victory for the Rebels (2-5) after holding Williamsport’s high-octane attack to minimal yards and one score in the first 30 minutes. But there were still clouds in the horizon.
“We did not play a good football game. We had mental lapses, missed tackles and things that I haven’t seen in weeks,” Sandridge said. “We had turned things around a little bit. We have been playing much better. We talked about the mistakes we had to fix and we felt in the last few games, we were making some progress … and then we get here today and we took a step back.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Williamsport got the only score of the first half in more pedestrian methods than usual. The Wildcats used a nine-play, 80-yard drive to get the score.
Parker found Donell Jefferies on a swing pass to the left, setting up a 13-yard sprint to the end zone. A 26-yard run by Tae’myj Boyce-Brown two plays earlier helped set up the score.
“Offensively, like we have in the last couple of weeks, we tried to get the running game going,” said Williamsport coach Tim Small. “And we did in spurts and we did at times. We always have big play potential.
“It was really important for us to get back in the win column this week. We’re bullish on these guys. We think we have a good football team. We had a tough two weeks against two outstanding opponents. I think South is really athletic and they do some things really well. This certainly wasn’t a game where we didn’t respect them.”
South tried to erase the deficit, spearheaded by Josiah Davis, one of Washington County’s leading runners.
With 6:36 remaining in the half, South made its two visits into scoring territory.
On the first try, South drove inside the Williamsport 10 and collected minus-1 yard on three plays from the 6 before turning the ball over on downs after two incomplete passes in the end zone.
The South defense kept Williamsport pinned, forcing the Wildcats to punt out of the end zone. The Rebels got as close as the 16 before losing nine yards on third down. They resorted to a 41-yard field goal attempt that was blocked with 30 seconds left in the half.
“We got to the point that I wanted to kick a field goal just to have some success,” Sandridge said. “He makes that (kick) in practice all the time. We would still rather have a missed field goal than to get stopped on fourth down again going into the half.”
At the intermission, Williamsport left the field feeling fortunate but looked for answers.
“We’ve had some one-score games at half and we have been able to persevere,” Small said. “We were able to come at the half and talk about what that needs to look like and tried to speak the third quarter into existence.”
Williamsport found life quickly in the second half.
Two running by Logan Durham and a personal foul put the Wildcats at their 41. Parker found Grayton on the right sideline at the South 20, leading to the 59-yard score and a coveted 14-0 lead.
We kind of came in at halftime a coaching staff and said what can we take … what are they giving us,” Small said. “We got them in an alignment bind.
“We set that up after we set it up with a run to give us the look we wanted to give. Gabe and David executed like they have all year. David is a pretty special football player and he has a chance to change a game anytime he touches the ball. He came really close tonight to getting a couple done.”
The two-score lead became Williamsport’s biggest ally.
South immediately responded with a four-play, 85-yard scoring drive, capped by a Lucas Semler’s 33-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Kareem Walton for the score to cut the deficit to 14-6 with 9:26 left in the third quarter.
Williamsport got the two-score lead back on the next drive, marching 60 yards. Durham capped it of with a two-yard TD to make it 21-6.
South returned the favor, scoring 2 ½ minutes later on the ensuing drive, sparked by Davis. The senior ran the ball on four of the six plays of the drive. A 17-yard effort coupled with an unsportsmanlike penalty put South on the doorstep, setting up Davis’s 2-yard TD with 4:55 left in the quarter.
The teams traded possessions for the final 16-plus minutes of the game, but South had one more shot at shrinking its 9-point deficit.
Semler engineered a drive starting on the South 35 midway through the fourth quarter. His passing and scrambling got the Rebels to Williamsport 9. On fourth-and-goal, Semler threw an out pass to Davis, who bulled his way to the 2 to come up short of a score with 4:06 remaining.
The Wildcats choked off all by six seconds of the remaining time to secure the win.
“We just couldn’t punch it in,” Sandridge said. “As bad as we played, we still had a chance to win. That’s going to be really frustrating to me.”
Other Scores
SEED 29, Boonsboro 20
Smithsburg 14, Catoctin 6
