Sometimes in a tight ballgame a coach will dig deep into the playbook and pull out some trick plays.
That’s what Saltillo High School football coach Pat Byrd did Friday night against New Hope. With the game tied at the start of the fourth quarter, the Tigers converted a pair of trick plays for touchdowns to turn a close game into a 42-22 victory.
Saltillo ran a misdirection play to perfection on the first play of the fourth quarter for a score. It then unveiled a double pass for a touchdown later in the quarter to claim a 1-0 start in Class 5A, Region 1 play.
“Sometimes (trick plays) work and sometimes they don’t, but thank goodness tonight it did,” Byrd said.
With the score tied at 15, the Tigers pulled out one of their wild cards on the first play of the fourth quarter. Facing first-and-goal from the 6-yard line, quarterback Andrew Soper sent receiver AJ Hunt in motion to the right. The move brought cornerback Trae Collins across the field with him. As soon as the ball was snapped, Soper tossed it to Demontarius Irby, who came out of the backfield and moved into the left flat and walked untouched into the end zone from 6 yards out.
“That’s just kind of a gotcha play,” Byrd said. “It’s something our guys work on. The offensive staff did a good job with it, they really did.”
Saltillo needed only one play on its next possession to score, as Soper hit Hunt on a 67-yard slant over the middle to make it 28-15.
However, the Trojans answered with a 11-play, 65-yard drive, capped by a 7-yard touchdown pass from Brady Davis to James Hill to pull within one score.
That’s when Saltillo again reached into its bag of tricks and pulled out a double pass play to put the game out of reach. Soper lateralled the ball to Hunt, who hit a wide open AJ Rye down the left sideline for a 64-yard touchdown.
“I knew that was going to work,” Soper said. “We worked on it all week in practice. We were pretty sure we were going to score a touchdown on that play.”
New Hope coach Michael Bradley gave credit to the Tigers for pulling out all the stops in the second half.
“At halftime, we were still in the lead and I felt good about it,” Bradley said. “Their coaching staff and team did a good job of making some adjustments and hit us with a couple of trick plays. They did a good job of scouting some things, and my hat’s off to Saltillo.”
Soper scored on a 6-yard scamper with 1 minute, 38 seconds remaining to help the Tigers improve to 4-1. Soper was 9 of 19 for 185 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. He also rushed 23 times for 115 yards and another score.
“It wasn’t all me,” Soper said. “The line blocked their butts off and I got the ball to the receivers and they did their thing. It was an all-around team effort that got us the win.”
New Hope drops to 2-3 and 0-1 in the region. It will try to even its mark in league play next week when it travels to Oxford.
“That’s going to be tough,” Bradley said. “We’ve got to find out how much courage and guts we’ve got. This is going to be a gut-check week for us and, hopefully we’ll respond to the challenge.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.