Bonner & Prendergast can hold heads high after first win
CHELTENHAM >> Bonner & Prendergast won a football game for the first time in the 2017 season, in part by running backward.
Yes, this is an accurate statement.
The Friars also needed an interception in the end zone on the final play of Saturday’s game, a 20-16 victory over Bishop McDevitt, before they could celebrate.
“We’re going to walk around school with our heads held high,” senior Kyrin Jackson said. “Now we can actually say we won a game.”
Bonner & Prendie (1-5, 1-2) escaped Alumni Field with a win, thanks to Jackson’s ability to escape would-be tacklers.
The Friars found themselves in a fourth-and-long scenario, pinned at their 5-yard line with 59 seconds left. Their punting game battled windy conditions and inconsistent snaps all game.
So Bonner & Prendie coach Jack Muldoon opted for creativity. He put Jackson in a Wildcat configuration, had him run five yards backward, and then elude as many Bishop McDevitt tacklers as possible. And it worked — for 21 seconds. In conceding a safety, the Friars returned the ball to McDevitt with only 38 seconds to go and in need of a touchdown.
“It’s not something we practice,” Muldoon said, “so we wanted it in our best athlete’s hands. We’re down to our third kicker this year. We knew this was our best chance. We said, ‘Let’s roll the dice.’ We told (Jackson) to run back and forth as much as he could. We wanted to take as much time off of the clock. It just felt like that clock took forever to tick down.”
But the Friars still needed a defensive stop.
The Lancers (4-2, 1-2) received the subsequent free kick, and then drove to the Friars’ 14-yard line with eight seconds remaining. A pass attempt to the back of the end zone from McDevitt’s Lonnie Rice hit the chest of Zay Scott and fell incomplete. With 1.7 seconds left, and on McDevitt’s final shot to score, Bonner & Prendie’s Ian Edwards stepped in front of Rice’s pass to clinch it with an interception and set off a celebration.
That was the last of five turnovers forced by the Friars’ defense. The first one, a fumble recovery by David MacMullen on a bobbled punt return, seemed to turn the tide for Bonner & Prendie. At the time, McDevitt held a 14-0 second-quarter lead.
“That was definitely an energy play for us,” said MacMullen, who also contributed with a blocked punt.
Jackson got the first of his three touchdowns prior to halftime. He turned a dig route into a 34-yard touchdown with 25 seconds before intermission. In the third quarter, he added a 10-yard score on a Wildcat run to the left side.
And Jackson’s biggest score — the one that decided the game — was his longest. The Friars faced a third-and-8 at their 15. Quarterback Shon Nelson found Jackson at the 35. Jackson beat a McDevitt safety near midfield, leaving his feet and swinging the ball behind the defender’s head, switching the ball from his right hand to his left in the process. He went the rest of the way untouched.
“It was just an instinct play,” Jackson said. I just made the guy miss. I never tried anything like that. First time. And it worked.”
This offense was a far cry from the one the Friars fielded in the first half, when they had a half-dozen plays go awry due to players lining up out of position. Coming into this game, the Friars had scored only 18 points in 20 quarters.
Muldoon said halftime adjustments that “made the playbook a little more simple” were the difference.
And they resulted in a win.
“This season, it would seem like something would happen, and the wheels would come off and we’d go south fast,” Muldoon said. “For me, personally, the fact that these kids got a win means everything.”
