Subscribe
Community
Winning by a leg
Smith's field goal puts H-town into title game
Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by EMILY BARNES
The Huntingtown football team, top, celebrates its victory over River Hill on Friday night, while Justin Bittner and Wayne Smith, bottom, share a moment.
|
E-Mail This Article
Huntingtown did something Friday night that not one football team over the last four years was unable to do: beat powerhouse River Hill. And it couldn't have picked a better time to do so.
The Hurricanes (13-0 overall) received a stellar performance from its defense and a field goal by Mark Smith with 64 seconds remaining in regulation to defeat the visiting Hawks in the Class 3A state semifinals, 10-7, on Friday evening.
"I'm extremely happy for the players," Huntingtown head coach Jerry Franks said as his exuberant players celebrated around him. "They hung in there and we had our backs against the wall in parts of the game and we could have definitely folded but no, we didn't quit. Not for one play did we quit. We made some big plays and got some turnovers. It's just an unbelievable feeling."
"Wow, that's all I can say," Huntingtown senior linebacker Joe Karbowsky said. "All the work we've done over the summer and the last four years has paid off."
Smith's 35-yarder late in the fourth quarter snapped a 7-7 tie.
"Oh, we're all excited," Smith said. "We all wanted to play up at M&T [Bank Stadium, the site of the title game]. It's one of the happiest moments of my life."
Huntingtown senior tight end/linebacker Conor Stueckler said the feeling between this year and last, when Lackey scored in the final minute of a first-round playoff game to oust the Hurricanes, is a complete reversal.
"After last year we were heartbroken. A lot of the guys were in the locker room for 20, 30 minutes just crying our eyes out," he said between receiving congratulatory hugs from parents, fellow students and teammates. "This time around a lot of us are crying, but it's for an entirely different reason. Words don't even describe how happy I am."
Huntingtown, the 3As second seed, will battle top-seeded Linganore, another state power, in the 3A championship game at 7 p.m. Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. It is the first state football championship appearance for Huntingtown, which opened its doors in fall 2004.
Karbowsky won his first-ever game at Huntingtown, while playing on the freshman team in 2006 and the squad finished the season undefeated. Now a senior, Karbowsky won his last football game at the school and his team is, once again, undefeated.
"All the guys that have been together for four years just looked at each other tonight before the game," Karbowsky said. "We were like, ‘You know, we need to do this for us.' For all the hard work and for everything we've done, we need to pull this one out and show everybody we belong here.'"
The third-seeded Hawks had won the last two 2A state championships before moving up to the 3A this year.
"All I heard this week was, ‘They've won 40 in a row,'" Franks said, referring to the Hawks' impressive streak. "Our last two regular seasons we've won 22 games. That's not shabby either. We've done all right for ourselves. I think we deserve some recognition, I really do, [because] we're a pretty good football team."
With the score knotted at 7, the Hurricanes finally had the chilly, 18-mile-per-hour northwest wind to their backs in the fourth quarter and took advantage of it.
River Hill went three and out and punted from its own 17-yard line. The ball died in the teeth of a biting wind and a 14-yard return by Chaz'Ze Hall gave Huntingtown the ball at the 27 with 3 minutes left.
"I knew if it was fourth down they were going to call on me," Smith said. "Everyone was telling me, ‘Get ready, be loose, no pressure.'"
Running back Greg Goodwin ripped off three successive 3-yard runs, the last of which he downed at the right hashmark on the 18.
"I knew he had the distance," Franks said of Smith, a first-year varsity kicker. "I knew that if we gave it up, the chance of getting it back again weren't going to be real good. We just had to go ahead and take our chance from there."
"There were a little [butterflies] at first when everyone was asking me, ‘You got this? You all right? You nervous?,'" Smith admitted. "But when I got out there it was just another kick. I'm usually not that great from the [hashmarks] but I've been improving. We had a good snap, a good hold and once it was kicked the wind started pushing it a bit to the left but it was good."
Controversial call
Smith's go-ahead field goal was by no means the end of the drama on a cold and windy night.
River Hill returned the ensuing kick to its own 35 and immediately went to work.
Hawks quarterback Harry McLaughlin hooked up with Nick Bonhag on a quick out for six yards and after an incompletion, went back to Bonhag for a 7-yard gain to the 48. McLaughlin then hooked up with Kevin Johnson for a 22-yard gain to the Hurricanes' 30 but just 30 seconds remained on the clock.
A 19-yard strike to Bonhag helped put River Hill down at the 8 with just 14 seconds on the clock.
"It was a lot of pressure, it was tense," Smith said. "[Bonhag] made a lot of great catches and we just couldn't stop him coming down the sidelines."
"We had some opportunities to get a pick and for whatever reason it didn't work out and that was a little bit nerve-wracking," Franks said of the game's final drive. "But the thing was we were there; we never let them [get] free."
Out of timeouts, River Hill attempted to spike the ball, but the snap was muffed and Huntingtown linebacker Andrew Bose pounced on the apparent game-ending fumble and the Hurricanes stormed the field in victory.
The officiating crew conferred at midfield for several minutes to discuss the play before declaring the snap was indeed fumbled and that Huntingtown had recovered the ball, thus ending the game.
"The call down there was really good because they definitely fumbled the snap," Franks said. "That was the call and it was a good call."
"I was actually right there," Karbowsky said. "I went in to hit [McLaughlin] and saw him try to pick up the ball like this. It was cold and I guess the ball just slipped out of his hands and I called out, ‘Ball,' and we just dove on it and picked it up. I knew it would be real controversial."
Bose added: "I saw the ball come loose and my first instinct was just to dive and go for the ball. It was just a good thing I grabbed it before they did."
River Hill coach Brian VanDeusen saw things differently.
"The whistle blew so there's got to be time on the clock," he said as reporters clustered around him, his players sullen and quiet. "The quarterback was downing the ball, but I guess they said he fumbled it and didn't throw it. It could have been a shovel pass, whatever. If the ball lands in front of him, it's a pass."
After the game, Bose was tightly clutching the game ball, mud-splattered and marked with an ‘RH' to designate the opponent.
"I'm going to get the team sign it," Bose said happily. "I'm just going to keep it. Or I may put it in the school case."
‘Canes get defensive
While there seems to be some question of the fate of the ball, there's no question it was awarded to the correct player as the senior linebacker was a one-man wrecking crew against the Hawks.
Bose starred in the Hurricanes' defensive showing with an interception, a forced fumble and two fumble recoveries.
"We knew we had to come out [on defense] and be a family and play together," he said. "And it showed on the field that we could stop anybody if we played hard."
River Hill found itself in the red zone five times but was only able to score seven points.
"I don't know that they moved it as much as our offense couldn't get the ball out of our own territory," Franks said of the third period, in which his team played almost the whole quarter in the shadow of its goal posts. "That was what killed us. It put us in a bad position and thank goodness the defense bailed us out."
Going for it
Huntingtown appeared to be on the verge of opening the scoring when it drove downfield on its first two possessions. But the Hurricanes turned the ball over on downs at the River Hill 30 and 28.
Huntingtown opened the scoring when Bose scooped up a fumble returned it 13 yards to the River Hill 12. Two plays later, quarterback Justin Bittner lofted a 15-yard pass into the back of the end zone to Dave Stanley.
The Hawks (12-1) tied it up late in the first half with a five-play drive that ended on McLaughlin's 5-yard touchdown run. The points were the first Huntingtown had surrendered in three playoff games.
