Hornets stun Wampus Cats in double overtime
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the look back at each day in Bryant athletic history has been so favorably received during the time when there was no sports during the COVID-19 shutdown, BryantDaily.com will continueposting past stories of Bryant athletics either posted on BryantDaily.com (from 2009 to the present) or published in the Bryant Times (from 1998 to 2008).
By Rob Patrick
Photos by Kevin Nagle and Rick Nation
“Where the hopes and dreams of first place teams come to die . . . Hornet Stadium.”
Just moments after the Bryant Hornets had defeated the Russellville Cyclones on Friday, Oct. 8, setting up their first-place showdown with the unbeaten Conway Wampus Cats, Bryant alum (and sideline coaches’ aide) Matt Snyder made that pronouncement.
Snyder had history on his side. Bryant Stadium has been tough on unbeaten teams in recent years. A few of those moments are recalled in the other story on this page about the Conway-Bryant showdown. Why, just last year, the Hornets stunned a previously unbeaten Cabot Panthers team.
Add the 2010 Wampus Cats to the list.[more]
In a game that lived up to the hype and ranks among the best played at Bryant Stadium, the Hornets, though outgained on offense by over 200 yards, found a way to win when senior Marcus Harris fell on a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown in the second overtime.
The TD came just after the Bryant defense, which had frustrated a Conway offense that had averaged over 45 points a game, had held the Wampus Cats to a field goal to start the second OT.
In high school, each team is given a chance to score from the opponents’ 10 then the other team gets a chance.
Conway started the second extra stanza with a run by Jamarkus Harmon who had amassed 194 yards rushing including both Conway touchdowns to that point. But he was dropped for no gain by safety Tanner Tolbert. On second down, junior quarterback Tyler Langley tossed a pass to do-it-all player Desmond Cox on the bubble screen. But Bryant linebacker Hunter Mayall avoided a blocker and nailed Cox for a 3-yard loss.
“That was a really big play,” noted Hornets defensive coordinator Steve Griffith. “(Mayall) is a solid young man. You expect guys with great character to come up in tough situations and he did. We had a lot of guys come up in big situations for us tonight.”
The Cats had a chance to get a touchdown on third down but Langley’s throw to Jalen Jones, who had worked his way open on the right side of the end zone, was too wide for him to reach.
Conway settled for a 25-yard field goal by Ivan Pelayo to take a tenuous 30-27 lead.
The Hornets got to the 2 on a pair of runs by Stephen Clark. Junior Jacob Powell got the call on third down and powered toward the end zone. Reaching across the goal line, the ball came loose only to have Harris recover for the winning touchdown.
It was a game of wide swings of emotion and momentum. Though the Hornets had held the vaunted Wampus Cats offense to just 3 points in the first half, Conway appeared to have turned everything around in the third quarter against a tiring Bryant defense. A 61-yard touchdown run by Harmon had tied the game in the third quarter. As the fourth unfolded, the Cats drove 77 yards in seven running plays to take the lead. Harmon scored from the 10 with 9:23 left in the game.
“It’s tied up 10-10 and they just take the ball and just punch it right down our throat because our defense is worn out,” observed Bryant head coach Paul Calley. “We can’t get a first down on offense. We’re reeling. And it turns out, that was the best thing that could happen. They scored the touchdown and kicked it off.”
The Hornets had worked on a new return for the game but, by then, had reverted to their standard return even though they hadn’t worked on it during the week, according to Bryant assistant Jason Hay. Junior Dillon Winfrey fielded the kick at the 6 and shot upfield through the middle, breaking out to the left sideline and sprinted all the way for an answering, rejuvenating, thrilling touchdown that, with Jace Denker’s extra point, tied the game at 17.
“I said before the game that we had to win special teams,” recounted Calley, who said in his pre-game radio show that he felt it was the one area that Bryant had an edge on the talented Cats. “We had to and we did and that’s what put us over the hump.”
Denker was a part of that with long kickoffs and two field goals. Tolbert, the Hornets punter, was as well turning the field position with kicks that including one for 53 yards and another for 60.
That helped make up for Bryant’s net of just 142 yards of offense.
Bryant’s defense limited Conway’s grounded game to just 37 yards in the first half. Even though they wound up surrendering 235 yards on the ground they frustrated the Cats in the passing game. Langley was 13 of 31 for 137 yards with two interceptions.
“Defensively, I’m astounded at the way we played,” Calley declared. “Seeing us against Northside and Van Buren and then seeing us tonight — I don’t know where it came from. Credit to our coaches, our kids, just an exceptional defensive effort.
“We did not help them on offense,” he added. “Aside from our first drive when we looked like we knew what we were doing, we turned the ball over three times. Our defense bailed us out every time.”
It was, in many ways, the best the Hornet defense has played all season, particularly considering the firepower for Conway.
“I tell you, we had a great week of practice,” mentioned Griffith. “We felt like we were going to play well. And we came out that first half and just, across the board — d-line, linebackers, secondary — just all played great. Coach (Brad) Stroud and Coach (John) Wells did a great job getting those guys ready and the kids answered the challenge of playing an extremely good team.”
Strong safety Holden Chavis led the Hornets with 16 tackles including seven solos. Josh Hampton and Tolbert each had 10, Mayall 8 and Collin Chapdelaine 7.
The defense was bolstered by Bryant’s opening drive for a score. Clark’s return of the opening kickoff nearly broke. As it was, he brought it out to the 47. The Hornets converted a fourth-and-one at the Conway 44 with a run by Dismuke. A play later, sophomore quarterback Hayden Lessenberry (an efficient 8 of 11 passing for a net of 46 yards) hit Sawyer Nichols for 13 yards to the Conway 29.
That duo combined to convert a third-and-3 at the 22. From the 11, Clark pounded to the 1 on three carries and Lessenberry sneaked it in from there.
The Hornets had taken the lead and consumed over six minutes of the first quarter.
And when Conway got the ball, they went three-and-out thanks in large part to a nice play by Winfrey to stop a third-down run for no gain.
From there, the two teams began to exchange turnovers. Lessenberry threw just his second interception of the season and Conway got the ball at the Bryant 26. But two plays later, Tolbert stepped in front of a Langley throw inside the 5 and returned it to the 18.
The Hornets pushed out to the 48 before a fumble by Clark was recovered by Conway’s Terrance Cartwright.
The Cats drove to the 35 where, on first down, Langley was sacked by Hampton and Ben Seale. On the next play, Mayall intercepted.
The Hornets went three and out but Tolbert’s punt left the Cats offense starting from its own 14. They tried a trick play and it blew up. A quick toss outside was followed by a lateral that was off the mark and Bryant’s Aaron Bell recovered at the 9.
The Hornets had a chance to increase the lead to 14-0 but, on a third-down play at the 8, Lessenberry was sacked by linebacker Darian Hill. Denker came on and drilled a 32-yard field goal to give the Hornets a 10-0 lead.
Conway answered and finally got a big play out of its offense when Desmond Cox out-jumped Dylan Blasi on a long pass from Langley and hauled it in at the 6.
But the Cats couldn’t get it into the end zone as Bryant’s defense rose up. Pelayo got them on the board, however, with a 25-yard field goal.
It was 10-3 at the half.
“We knew they were going to regroup at half and they were going to come out with some fire,” Griffith related. “And we had to meet the challenge. They got it going a little in the third quarter. They just executed and we missed some tackles that we should’ve made.”
After the teams traded punts, Conway drove to the Bryant 19 where, on third-and-4, Mayall dismantled a bubble screen and dropped Tristan Eddings for a loss back to the 24. A fourth-down pass fell incomplete and the Hornets’ defense had made a stand.
The offense was undermined by some miscommunication on a third-down play. Lessenberry wasn’t ready for the snap in the shotgun and the ball zipped by him. He retreated to the 19 to cover it and Tolbert came on to punt.
The fact that he was knocked down on his kick did not elude the Bryant fans but because he was using a rugby-style kick in which he get a running start at his kick, the officials overlooked the contact.
And, despite it, Tolbert unleashed his 60-yarder to turn the field over again.
Conway moved out from the 21 to the 44 when a procedure penalty pushed them back to the 39. On the next play, however, Harmon broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage and a couple of others along the way as he bolted 61 yards for a touchdown that, with Pelayo’s PAT, tied the game at 10.
Trying to keep the worn defense off the field, the Hornets went for it on fourth-and-1 from their own 38. After a timeout, Clark came through with his most impressive run of the night, a 14-yard blast on which he refused to be tackled.
Later, however, the Hornets faced a fourth-and-2 at the Conway 40.
“I gambled on that fourth down and one and it was huge,” Calley recalled. “We saw how they lined up. We were trying to find (Conway defensive tackle) Marquez Massey. We couldn’t block him. He’s a good player. We wanted to identify where he was going to line up and run away from him.
“The formation was similar to the one we used on the goal line (at the end of the game),” he continued. “Then, I didn’t gamble on the fourth and 2 because I didn’t think it was manageable. I didn’t want to take a chance. I wanted to pin them deep and let our defense play.”
Tolbert’s short punt followed and the Wampus Cats, behind the running of Harmon and Cordarius Irby, marched to the go-ahead score.
Buoyed by Winfrey’s kickoff return for an answering score, the Bryant defense stepped up again, holding Conway to a three-and-out.
“That got our energy going again,” Griffith said. “We started making some tackles we’d missed in the third quarter.”
Sparked by the insertion of Powell in the backfield and a change in tactic, the Hornets offense responded with a drive from its own 32 to the Conway 16 where a run that may have picked up a first down was negated by an illegal block on the corner. A third-down pass into the end zone fell just beyond the reach of Tolbert and, with 1:42 left in the game, Denker came on and blasted a 44-yard field goal, the longest of his career, to put Bryant on top 20-17.
“We didn’t get many formations that I liked how they lined up defensively,” Calley explained. “That was one of them. We had (Steven) Lecamu on the wing because they were going to declare strength to the tight end. Then we’ve got the fullback (Harris) right there too. It’s an overload and they didn’t adjust where they could stop us. We had an equal number of players on that side of the ball.
“That’s what we couldn’t get in all night,” he continued. “They were stunting and they were going to stop our zone. They were playing man on us and that’s a tough scheme especially when they’re as good as they are up front.”
Before that go-ahead drive, Calley met with his offensive line. “I said, ‘Guys, what do you want to do?’” he recounted. “I said, ‘I want to run it right at them.’ They said, ‘Coach, please, let’s run it right at them. Don’t run zone, don’t run counter, don’t run anything. Let us fire off and block.’ That’s what we did. And we stayed with the same basic plays.”
Powell was seeing his first extended, meaningful playing time after one running back, Dismuke, broke his wrist in the first half; another, Jalen Bell, continued to be slowed by an ankle injury; and the starter, Clark, had been gassed by having to go both ways much of the game. The critical play of the drive was a fourth-and-1 at the Conway 45. Powell’s cutback run against the flow to the right converted with a pick-up of 5 yards. Clark followed with an 18-yard blast as the two backs began to alternate.
Conway answered with a drive from their 39 to the Bryant 17 where their drive stalled. A third-down completion from Langley to Eddings got to the 12 and, on fourth down and only :04.7 on the clock, Pelayo came on booted the tying field goal to send it to overtime.
Bryant took the first possession and scored in three plays. Clark got in from the 3.
Conway then scored immediately in response as Jones out-jumped Bell on Langley’s pass into the end zone. Tied 27-27, the second overtime began, leading to the winning touchdown on which Powell carried to the goal line and fumbled only to have Harris recover for the TD.
“Powell stepped up,” Calley acknowledged. “He had some big runs towards the end. He hadn’t played as much because he’s not really a zone scheme guy. That’s what we’re doing. He’s more of a straight ahead, power runner and, man, I sure am glad he came through in the second half. And I’m happy for him.”
Both teams are now 6-1 but Bryant is along atop the conference at 4-0 heading into another rugged game at Cabot.
BRYANT 34, CONWAY 30, 2OTs
Score by quarters
Conway 0 3 7 10 7 3 — 30
BRYANT 7 3 0 10 7 7 — 34
Scoring summary
First quarter
BRYANT — Lessenberry 1 run (Denker kick), 5:35
Second quarter
BRYANT — Denker 32 field goal, 5:56
CONWAY — Pelayo 25 field goal, 2:25
Third quarter
CONWAY — Harmon 61 run (Pelayo kick), 3:45
Fourth quarter
CONWAY — Harmon 10 run (Pelayo kick), 9:23
BRYANT — Winfrey 94 kickoff return (Denker kick), 9:08
BRYANT — Denker 44 field goal, 1:42
CONWAY — Pelayo 30 field goal, 0:04.7
First overtime
BRYANT — Clark 3 run (Denker kick)
CONWAY — Jones 10 pass from Langley (Pelayo kick)
Second overtime
CONWAY — Pelayo 30 yard field goal
BRYANT — Harris fumble recover in the end zone (Denker kick)
Team stats
Conway BRYANT
First downs 18 11
Rushes-yds 36-235 40-96
Passing 13-31-2 8-11-1
Passing yds 137 46
Punts-avg 3-43.7 5-44.2
Fumbles-lost 2-1 4-1
Penalties-yds 3-15 2-16
INDIVIDUAL STATS
Rushing: BRYANT, Clark 23-75, Powell 8-36, Dismuke 4-17, Pritchett 1-2, J.Bell 3-(-2), Lessenberry 7-(-12); CONWAY, Harmon 25-194, Irby 6-28, Langley 6-13.
Passing (C-A-I-Y): BRYANT, Lessenberry 8-11-1-46, Dismuke 0-1-0-0; CONWAY, Langley 13-31-2-137.
Receiving: BRYANT, Nichols 6-58, Dismuke 1-0, Garrett 1-(-12); CONWAY, Eddings 5-37, Jones 4-39, D.Cox 2-42, Harmon 2-19.
