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MARION – The season died on the 9-yard line. And it died wet.
At the east end of the Eastbrook High School field, four or five Harding Hawks were scattered around, sitting or lying or kneeling in the churned goo. The clock showed 49 seconds to play. Eastbrook had the ball, the first down and the victory.
Final score in the Monsoon Bowl on Friday night, aka a sectional semifinal in which a driving deluge beat everyone: Eastbrook 21, Harding 14.
Final verdict: Harding scored 14 consecutive points in the first quarter, Eastbrook scored 21 consecutive in the second quarter, and then the storm turned the field into a swamp and the game into the most elemental of contests.
“They just beat us up front all night,” Harding coach Sherwood Haydock said, putting words to it.
And that was the key on a night fit more for chess by the fire than football.
Zach Haydock ran 35 yards on an option keeper on Harding’s initial possession, hit a wide-open Delayno Preston for a 64-yard score on the Hawks’ second possession, and after that the weather and Eastbrook’s dominance in the trenches decided the game.
From the 3:32 mark of the first quarter, when Preston crossed the goal line, until the halftime break, the Hawks had the football for just nine plays. Eastbrook helped that along by recovering an onside kick after its first touchdown and taking it in for the tying score, a tipping point from which the Hawks never recovered.
“That was huge,” Haydock said.
Especially after the rain and field conditions rendered both teams virtually helpless. In the second half, Harding never crossed midfield. And in the fourth quarter, they scratched out just 5 yards and never advanced the ball past their own 20.
Eastbrook, on the other hand, bottled up Harding star Rod Smith, limiting him to 78 yards on 25 carries and no run longer than 11 yards. Conversely, its own workhorse, fullback Jeremy Porter-Jones, slogged north-and-south through the muck for 101 yards and two touchdowns.
“They had everybody in the box,” Smith said. “Field was messed up, so we really couldn’t use our speed. Basically all they did was play good on this type of field.”
And Harding did not.
“Really, they lined up exactly how we wanted them to line up,” Haydock said. “But we couldn’t use our speed. You know, you can load up to stop Rod, and we’ve got that speed in the slot. But they couldn’t use it because they couldn’t get their footing to get outside.”
