All seemed lost for Cardinal Mooney on Friday night, Aug. 28.
Trailing by 20 points to Cardinal Newman in the fourth quarter, Davin Davidson threw his second interception of the night in the end zone. A few plays later, 6-foot-3, 235 pound Ty Kirkpatrick burned the entire Cougar defense for a 96-yard catch and run touchdown.
Suddenly, the Cougars found themselves trailing 47-20. Ten minutes later, the Crusaders escaped Sarasota with a 47-46 win.
A quick drive from Cardinal Mooney ended in a short touchdown carry from Connail Jackson, cutting the lead to 47-27 with eight minutes to go. The Cougars forced a punt from Newman on the ensuing drive, then scored again with a 35-yard touchdown pass from Davidson to a wide-open CJ King.
Cardinal Mooney missed
the PAT, one of many special teams miscues that cost the Cougars dearly in the loss.
With King’s touchdown (and missed extra point), the Cougars had trimmed the lead to 47-33 with five minutes remaining. The stout Cougar linebacker core came up with the biggest play of the game a few minutes later.
With the Crusaders on the Cougar 24-yard line, Jesse Rico forced a fumble in the backfield that Tra’vion Lester scooped up and took 76 yards for a touchdown. With Lester’s score, Cardinal Mooney had scored 21 unanswered in seven minutes and needed one more stop.
“That (scoop and score) put us in a bad predicament,” said Cardinal Newman head coach Jack Daniels. “Then obviously our guys are gassed. They played a bunch of plays and a lot of guys were playing both ways..."
Cardinal Mooney got the stop they needed after the Crusaders began the next drive with a false start, and they played from behind the sticks the rest of the possession. A timely tackle for loss from John Jones on second down set up an errant pass on third-and-long, giving Cardinal Mooney the ball back trailing 47-40 with just over three minutes left.
To describe Cardinal Mooney’s game-winning attempt as chaotic would be an understatement.
The Cougars got three different pass interference calls, all on deep 1-on-1 routes. The three penalties were invaluable to the Cougars. When they needed it most, they got 45 yards of penalty calls. Filling out the rest of the offensive burden was Jackson, who took screens and pitches down the field in chunks, inching the Cougars deeper into Crusader territory.
Between the pass interference calls and Jackson’s impressive effort in crunch time, Cardinal Mooney worked its way to Cardinal Newman’s 7-yard line. From there, Seneca Hawthorne, who had some frustrating drops earlier in the game, came up big in the clutch after reeling in a strike from Davidson that cut the deficit to 47-46 with 25 seconds remaining.
From there, Cardinal Mooney head coach Jared Clark had a decision to make. The Cougars have struggled on special teams all year, and had already seen a missed PAT, two mishandled punt snaps (one of which resulted in a safety), and a tipped punt in this game. With the game on the line, Clark left the offense on the field.
Cue Jackson, who took a pitch from Davidson and hit the edge. The Cougars’ workhorse delivered again, getting into the end zone and giving the Cougars a 48-47 lead. A holding call negated the game-winner instead, and moved the Cougars back 10 yards.
Cardinal Mooney sent out the special teams unit to try and force overtime, but Cooper Clark and Shangler Limage got the pressure in the middle, and the game-tying attempt careened off their outstretched arms.
Mooney had one more chance on the ensuing kickoff as three personal foul penalties on Cardinal Newman had the Cougars kicking off from the Newman 30-yard line. But the onside kick was recovered at the Newman 20 to seal the win.
“It’s a great win for us,” Daniels said. “But it kind of feels like we didn’t win. It will be a lot better bus ride with a 1–point win than a 1-point loss, I can tell you that.
The Crusaders took such a commanding lead behind a balanced offense onslaught through the first three quarters. Janarro Sumpter was invaluable in the win, tallying 176 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries. Pedro Martinez finished 12-for-20 in the air with three passing touchdowns, and Chris Laborde added valuable two-way play with around 50 all-purpose yards, a touchdown carry, and some key tackles.
“It was tough,” Daniels said. “I thought we had everything going with our momentum. We were up 27 then we lost our safety (Khalil Gabaud) and we kind of got flat after that.”
Gabaud, a 4-star junior who had been solid in the game, went down hard in the second half and had to be carted off the field. Cardinal Newman was visibly shaken after the injury, which prompted a swarm of medical personnel to rush the field.
As the Crusaders rolled through the first three quarters, the Cougars struggled. On top of the special teams errors, the pass game took three quarters to materialize. Jackson shouldered the load for Cardinal Mooney while they tried to find their footing, and either carried the ball or caught a pitch 28 times. He finished with around 230 yards on offense, two touchdowns, and the game-winning 2-point try that was rescinded.
Davidson finished the loss 21-of-36 with 3 touchdown passes, two incterceptions, and a rushing touchdown.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Cardinal Mooney's fourth quarter rally falls short vs. Cardinal Newman
