As Homecoming week neared its end, the marquee event of the Homecoming Football game finally took place on Friday night.  As the faithful gathered, the air was heavy with anticipation.  And the game lived up to its billing, with the Dragons coming out of it with a nail-biting 22-14 win that came down to the last defensive play.  Both offense and defense played an impressive game, with the offensive line creating numerous holes in the line, the defense holding strong when it was critical, and a strong special teams performance.

Coach Crozier reported that the team had 329 total yards in the game, with 208 in Rushing and 121 in Passing.

Some impressive lines include Brady Showell, who had had 118 rushing, 34 receiving, and 25 passing yards, including 2 rushing touchdowns, one of 66 yards in the fourth to give Malad the lead.

Braylen Tripp had 96 yards passing and 21 rushing and one passing TD.

Ryan Hubbard had 67 rushing and 58 receiving and 1 receiving TD with 2.8 seconds left in first half.

“It was definitely a tough game,” the coach said.  “In the first half we only had the ball 5 total times and scored on three drives.  We marched on the field our first drive but stalled on the 4 yard line.  The next time we got the ball there were only 30 seconds left in the half and we had 75 yards to go.  Braylen made a few good passes that got us to the 35 yard line with nine seconds left.  I told him to take a shot at the end zone.  He threw it to Brady but West Jefferson had a defender in a great position who batted the ball down.  Luckily, Ryan Hubbard was in the right spot at the right time to catch the deflection with 2.8 seconds left in the half.  This was the turning moment for us.”  The catch was truly amazing, and sent the team and crowd into halftime on a high.

“After halftime, we came out ready to go and our kids knew they had to send a message, so we ran the same two plays repeatedly marching down the field and scoring on a 24 yard run from Brady Showell, bringing the score to 14-14.  

Our defense stepped up the second half and got two big stops.  We got the ball back in the fourth quarter and we were trying to run some time off the clock when Brady Showell busted a quick hitter run that was blocked perfectly by our line and took it 66 yards for a touchdown.  The two point conversion made it 22-14.

West Jefferson got the ball back and started marching down the field.  They were 25 yards from scoring and our defense made four big plays to retake the ball.  With two minutes left we needed to milk some clock so we ran the ball trying to get a first down, but weren’t successful.  It was fourth down with eight seconds left and we had to punt the ball and make sure they didn’t return it.  Our punt team gave Braylen enough time to get it off and we defended it well, letting the ball bounce and running out the clock to win.”

The other teams were also in action.  As the coach said, “Our JV team played West Jefferson in a two quarter game, winning 24-0.  Our C team also played Grace’s JV on Wednesday and got the win.” 

With this outstanding win on the books, it’s time to head into the season proud and hungry.