RIDGELAND — Uncle Mo is a welcome guest at playoff time.
Nurtured the right way, it can help pave the way to championship dreams.
But you”re in for trouble if Uncle Mo turns against you.
The New Hope High School football team discovered how quickly a game can turn when turnovers create a shift in momentum.
Ridgeland capitalized on the surge of emotion, scoring 20 unanswered points in the second half en route to a 34-27 victory Friday night in the second round of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State playoffs at Titan Field.
“Anytime you get to this level and you get two teams that match up as well as I thought we could, whoever made the mistakes was going to be the difference,” Ridgeland coach Kenny Burton said. “The Lord has blessed all season and we”ll take it.”
Trailing 24-14 at halftime and without any momentum, the Titans (13-0) used a scoop and score off a New Hope fumble by Kris Givens that went for 16 yards to cut into the lead. Another fumble by the Trojans deep in their end on their next possession led to an 8-yard touchdown run by Ridgeland”s Jordan Bush that energized the crowd and the Titans” defense, which made it even tougher for New Hope (8-5) to re-take control of the game.
“The big ”Mo can hurt you and it can help you,” Thrasher said. “I guess it just got the better of us tonight.”
Last year, New Hope capitalized on the decisive momentum shift, as it used one of four Ridgeland turnovers to score what proved to be the winning touchdown in a 28-21 victory. Burton thought it was fitting his team capitalized on New Hope”s mistakes on a night in which his football program played its 100th game.
Senior quarterback Zak Thrasher (22 of 32, 227 yards) had a strong final game for the Trojans. The highlight was a 36-yard touchdown pass to Franklin Richardson Jr. with 51 seconds to go in the second quarter. The pass play capped a string of 17 unanswered points that featured a 5-yard scoring run by Terrance Dentry (26 carries, 154 yards) and a recovered pooch kick by the Trojans that led to a 24-yard field goal by Tanner Ryals.
The momentum surged thanks a quarterback sack by Q Newby, who was cleared to play with a cast on his left hand, that gave the ball back to the Trojans with 1:45 to play in the half.
Richardson Jr.”s catch brought the momentum to a crescendo. The senior had his back turned to Thrasher as he raced into the end zone. Thrasher dropped the ball over a defender and right in front of Richardson Jr., who somehow turned his head to pick up the ball and put his hands out at the right moment to snare the ball.
But New Hope”s momentum didn”t last.
The Trojans couldn”t match the productivity they had last week in a 46-22 victory against Jackson Callaway in Columbus. The telling blow came on a 17-play drive that stretched from the end of the third quarter into the fourth. Trailing 28-24, New Hope faced a fourth-and-6 on the Ridgeland 15. The Trojans drew the Titans offsides to set up a fourth-and-1. Dentry took the handoff and appeared to have used a second effort to get the first down, but the spot left him inches short and forced the Trojans to turn the ball over on downs. Five plays later, David Darden scored on a 3-yard touchdown run to push Ridgeland”s lead to 34-24 after the missed extra point. A 62-yard run around left end by Jordan Bush was the backbreaker on the drive.
“We made some mistakes in the third quarter and it just killed us,” Thrasher said. “The third quarter killed us.”
New Hope responded with a 14-play drive that went as far as the Titans” 1, only to be pushed back by a false start and to have a third-down pass by Thrasher go too high. Ryals” 26-yard field goal with a little less than four minutes to play cut the deficit to 34-27.
A sack by New Hope”s Dalton Hodges on quarterback Nick Johnson helped snuff out the Titans” next drive.
But New Hope had to burn all three of its timeouts to stop the clock, so it had only 1 minute, 12 seconds left to go 56 yards for a potential game-tying score. New Hope gained only 7 yards on the first three plays before a pass by Thrasher went high out of bounds. The incompletion marked the final high school game in the careers of 19 New Hope seniors.
New Hope coach Michael Bradley praised Ridgeland and said he was proud of his team for “playing its guts out.” Still, he said a couple of mistakes proved too much to overcome.
“We gave them the ball inside the 30 three times and they converted them into 21 points,” Bradley said. “We knew coming in that the team that committed the fewest turnovers was going to win the game, and it was them.”
A fumble by New Hope on its second possession gave Ridgeland the ball at the Trojans” 28. The Titans took only five plays to take a 7-0 lead.
Bradley complimented his players for fighting through all of the injuries and adversity in what proved to be an up-and-down season. He said the Trojans had a good game plan and thought they were going to live to play another week. Unfortunately, atypical mistakes proved to be their undoing.
It also didn”t help that a well-executed onside kick to start the third quarter didn”t bounce like it would have on grass and was recovered by Ridgeland. The Titans didn”t capitalize immediately, but the fact that the ball was deep in New Hope”s end for much of the first part of the second half worked to their advantage when they recovered the fumbles and faced a short field.
“I will take full responsibility for that,” Bradley said of the onside kick to start the second half. “It was a gamble, We almost gave up a couple of big plays on the kickoff return team, and I didn”t want them to get a big play to start the second half.”
Thrasher didn”t make excuses, but he acknowledged the artificial turf was shorter and didn”t have the same grip as the turf at Mississippi State, where the Trojans practiced earlier in the week. He also said the Trojans failed to capitalize on their opening drive when there was a hole open for Johnny Beamon but the senior running back slipped on the turf.
“We just couldn”t connect,” Thrasher said. “I thought we did an OK job, but turnovers will kill you. Ridgeland had the momentum and it just seemed to kill us.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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 46 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.