Midway wins the game 21-9
Harriman took the opening kick-off and proceeded down the field. The Blue Devils got down right evil with a drive that captured chunks of yards with runs and short passes initiated from a “spread” offense. It ended with a 9 yard touchdown pass and an early lead after a failed conversion attempt.
Midway answered with a short pass to Ray Robinson who turned it into a 40 yard gain deep into Blue Devil territory. Quinton Pressley soon followed with a 7 yard touchdown scoring pass to Mark Childers.
After each team’s initial drives the score was:
Midway 7
Harriman 6
Looking to take advantage of the momentum, Midway attempted an onside kick. The Green team recovered but found the devil in the details: the ball did not travel the required distance, so Harriman took the ball on this technicality with great field position, and with intentions of repeating their most recent piece of offensive work, but what they found was that the Midway coaching staff didn’t wait until half time to make adjustments as some teams do .. the result was a “3 and out” by the Harriman offense, and the Midway defense had made a statement.
Midway took the ball near their own 20 yard line and immediately got offensive with a well-executed pass play to Will Poe, but the guys in stripes took it away with a holding penalty. However the tone was set, and Midway believed they could move the ball, and they did! They proceeded to move the ball deep into Harriman territory only to fumble it and the momentum away at the 18 yard line to end the first quarter.
The 2nd quarter was all about Harriman trying to take advantage of its size. They were bigger in the trenches, and tried to take advantage of that fact. The result saw the Blue Devils dominate the clock, but their dominating the time of possession didn’t translate to putting any points on the board. They had 2 drives in the second quarter: one ended with an interception, and the other was lost on downs with 29 seconds to go in the half.
Midway’s turn on the offensive side of things (in the 2nd quarter) ended in a “3 and out” and later with a frantic rush to the end zone as the home team tried to make something good happen in the closing seconds of the half.
The score after the initial 2 possessions of the game held through the half: Midway was still up by a single point.
They say the first five minutes of the second half can be the difference in winning and losing in a tightly contested game. If so, it didn’t look good for Midway as they took the 2nd half’s initial possession of the game and kept the ball for only 3 plays.
Harriman took the ball for a long drive that was aided along the way by a face mask penalty. Harriman looked as good on their first drive of the second half as they had on the game’s initial drive (which resulted in a touchdown). They had the momentum and took the ball toward the cow pastures with an eagerness that looked troublesome to the home team’s fans, but as they approached pay dirt a momentum breaker by the name of Josh Langley showed up as he cracked down on a Harriman running back for a 2 yard loss. This might have been the play of the game as it was key in halting Harriman’s long drive