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The Smiths lead the Chargers
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
Lackey's Herman Bowman can't shake Huntingtown's Quante Brown and Andrew Bose during a second quarter run.
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With his team trailing in the third quarter of its playoff game against Huntingtown, Chargers quarterback Amir Smith shouted repeatedly on the sideline, ‘I don't want to go home. I don't want to go home.' Now he won't have to.
Smith fired a nine-yard touchdown pass to receiver Antwan Smith with 43 seconds left as the Chargers stunned host Huntingtown 19-14 in the semifinal round of the Class 3A South regional football playoffs on Friday night.
Fourth-seeded Lackey (8-3) will now travel to Westlake at 7 Friday night to face the Wolverines, who clubbed second-seeded Friendly, in the regional final.
"It was a great game but a tough one," Lackey coach Douglas Lamb said among the whoops and hollers of his joyous team. "In the playoffs, you have to just keep fighting and that's a testament to these kids. We had some injuries to some key kids in the secondary, but a lot of guys stepped up in key roles tonight."
"The [newspaper] said we underachieved [this season]," said Antwan Smith, whose circus-like catch propelled Lackey into the next round, "so we came out and made a statement tonight."
Huntingtown (9-2) earned the top seed in the region with a school-record nine wins and also shared the SMAC championship with North Point and county-rival Patuxent. But, that was little consolation for the Hurricanes, who were devastated after the crushing loss.
"For whatever reason, it wasn't meant to be and it's very difficult to take," Huntingtown coach Jerry Franks said in a telephone interview Sunday night. "Very difficult loss, because of the players we had. Just an outstanding group of young men and we had 15 seniors this year and that's 15 who didn't get a chance to accomplish the things we wanted to do. We felt we had an opportunity to win the state and for whatever reason, we're not going to have an opportunity to do that. Is this one of my most difficult losses ever? Yeah, I'd say so."
"Looking back on [the season]," Huntingtown senior Justin Albro said via telephone Sunday, "it's going to be real upsetting because we could have won that game."
A Frank pick
Lackey trailed 14-13 and Huntingtown was at midfield midway through the fourth quarter when the Chargers' Mickey Frank picked off a pass after it glanced off two sets of hands.
Lackey took over at the Huntingtown 37 with 4 minutes 32 seconds remaining and converted a pair of third downs to set up second down and goal from the Hurricanes' 9.
Amir Smith then pulled down a high snap and fired a pass into coverage that Antwan Smith pulled down for the go-ahead touchdown with just 43 seconds left.
Needing a touchdown to win, Huntingtown quarterback Peter Athens completed a 17-yard pass to Conor Stueckler to put the Hurricanes at the Lackey 37. But, four plays later, Emmanuel Osuchukwu intercepted a last-gasp Hail Mary pass at the goal line to set off a jubilant celebration.
Huntingtown had its share of chances to open the scoring early in the game but missed several chances to take the lead.
On four of its first six offensive series, the Hurricanes had the ball inside the Lackey 25-yard line, including three times at the 15 or closer, but failed to come away with any points. Huntingtown missed a field goal on its first drive and the other three ended on downs.
"We had our opportunities, especially early in the game, to score and put some points on the board but we couldn't," Franks said. "I think that was probably the biggest factor. We made some mistakes later in the game, but I think if we had been able to capitalize on the opportunities we had earlier, I don't think those mistakes would have been as critical for us."
Huntingtown eventually took the lead, with less than a minute left in the half, when Culver Bradbury picked off Smith's pass in the flat and ran untouched into the end zone.
"At the very last second when my arm was in motion," Amir said of when he saw Bradbury. "At that point [the ball] was already going."
Lamb defended the play, which was on a first and 10 from the Chargers' 20 with 53 seconds left before the break.
"I know everyone was like, ‘Why the hell did he throw it' but, to be honest with you, we did the same damn thing last week with a minute left and go 80 yards and score," he said. "I know anytime I can get the ball in any of these guys' hands in the second level they can break it. My thought was, ‘Let's go run a quick little window route and see if they can break it. We break it last week and we were the smartest guys in the world."
"That was huge, that was just absolutely huge," Franks said of the pick, which sent the Hurricanes faithful into a frenzy. "That was just a tremendous uplifting for our team at halftime. It gave us a great deal of confidence."
The offense
comes alive
Lackey finally got on the board when Smith gunned a throw to Gary Fortune, who stopped and shed his defender and raced 57 yards for the score.
But just three plays later, Huntingtown regained the lead when Athens found receiver Tobias Jenifer open in the end zone and hit him with a 34-yard strike. The score was helped set up by Quante Brown, who returned the kickoff 32 yards to the Chargers' 43.
The Chargers promptly completed an 11-play, 65-yard drive when Smith rifled a throw to Ryan Cooper at the left sideline. Cooper side-stepped two would-be tacklers and danced into the end zone from 18 yards out.
Albro blocked the extra point to keep the Hurricanes in front 14-13 but the lead wouldn't last long.
Lamb gave full credit to Athens and Huntingtown running back Greg Goodwin (25 carries, 115 yards).
"They were killing us with that counter-trey; they were chunking yardage and chunking yardage with it and Jerry does a good job of mixing it up," Lamb said. "And [Athens] and [Chopticon quarterback Leo] Kyte are right there as the best quarterbacks in the conference, so the thing is you have to be disciplined. All week, we ran a bunch of different coverages and just tried to get our guys in spots where they didn't have to think. And here it is at the line of scrimmage they're just whipping our tails."
Lamb, whose team rode a three-game winning streak to a playoff berth, said his team just lacked the ability to play well, game in and game out, this season.
"I think we've known we can play well," he said. "I just think the biggest question was our consistency. Our constant battle within ourselves has been consistency and it's been a difficult battle."
On his team's big win against the Hurricanes, Lamb was still somewhat in shock.
"This is the No. 1 team in the region," he said with a faint smile. "We're not supposed to come in here and do this."
mreid@somdnews.com
Michael Reid
