PHEBA — With just over two minutes left in the game, Hebron Christian was trailing by two scores. Meridian Homeschool had been able to run the ball all night through broken tackles and was about to add to their advantage in what already seemed like a lost cause.
Hebron linebacker Nate Fulgham, also the team’s quarterback, had spent the fourth quarter trying to motivate his teammates for a final push, and this was his moment to walk the walk.
He chased down the Meridian runner, timing and angling his pursuit to take him down at the three-yard line.
“Nate’s got grit,” Hebron head coach Nate Carr said of his senior captain. “I’ve coached him in other sports here, this is our first year in football. I’ve known Nate a lot longer than I’ve been at Hebron, and he’s from a family with perseverance and grit, no quit.”
Meridian was up 30-20, and that would be the final score of the game as Fulgham and co. made a stand, backed up against their own end zone. Kvun Harris followed Fulgham’s lead with a sack to further back the opponents up, and two further rushing attempts were stopped short as the clock ran out.
“I just wanted to put up for everybody,” Fulgham said of the chasedown tackle. “I wanted to show that if I put everything out for them, maybe they’ll put up for me. That’s all I want.”
The Eagles, now 0-1 on the year, have a lot of work to do. Too many times, they stalled out because of penalties on offense, and too many times, they failed to wrap up tackles on defense.
Carr showed his frustration at times, but he also let his players, like Fulgham, hold the other guys accountable.
“We had a timeout and he was crowing a kid on the field,” Carr said of Nate. “I called the timeout so he could get him more on the sideline because we’ve got to have that leadership. Something that we’ve lacked the last several years, and we need that type of leader who will get onto somebody when they need it. We need more like that.”
Fulgham accounted for three touchdowns on the night, rushing for two scores and tossing another to wide receiver Ethan Sappington on a 76-yard touchdown. That pass put the Eagles in the lead 20-18 in the third quarter, but there was an immediate response from the visitors.
Shelton Pace, a captain for Meridian, accounted for all four of his team’s touchdowns, rushing in three times in the third quarter to take control of the game.
On his third rushing score to retake the lead for Meridian, Pace shoved off no less than five Eagles defenders as he cut back across midfield and raced away into the end zone.
For Hebron, the loss points to fundamentals that need working on for the season ahead, and Carr was straightforward about addressing them.
“Just getting back to it,” he said of the plan for next week. “We’ve got some offensive and defensive line kinks to work out. That was our Achilles tonight.”
“We know every week is 0-0,” Fulgham added. “No losses, no wins, it’s always a clean slate. We’re just going to try our best and put everything out on the field.”
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