The Heritage Academy football team”s season-finale Friday night against Clarksdale Lee Academy was more of a period than an exclamation point.
The Patriots dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball for the majority of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AAA, North Division I district contest en route to a 14-0 victory, but they couldn”t put the pesky Colts away.
“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Heritage Academy coach Brad Butler, whose team ended a 5-6 season with a two-game winning streak. “We drew ourselves offsides more than we drew them offsides. We had a hard time on third-down conversions. That was frustrating.”
The situation seemed grim for the Colts (1-10) as they saw two of their players assisted off the field with injuries in the first four minutes of the game. But the Patriots failed to capitalize until late in the second quarter, when senior tailback Hunter Buxton led them down the field on an 80-yard drive.
Quarterback Cade Lott scored on a 9-yard run with a little less than three minutes remaining in the half, but Buxton carried the load on that drive and for the remainder of the game. Despite sitting out the first quarter, he racked up 118 yards on 22 carries.
“We thought we could do some things with our speed (in the first quarter),” Butler said. “We got in spread formations and tried to capitalize on that. When that didn”t work we moved on to plan B, and (Buxton) did a good job of running the ball tonight.”
Clarksdale Lee mounted its best drive on the following possession thanks to a 38-yard breakaway run by Yeager Bass, which landed the Colts on the Patriots” 22 with 40 seconds remaining in the half.
An offsides call on Heritage Academy moved Clarksdale Lee 5 yards closer. Two plays later, the Colts were knocking on the door from the 2 with 16 seconds in the half. But with no timeouts, they couldn”t get re-set to run another play after Blake Hester”s quarterback sneak attempt was stuffed.
“Somebody down there said we were standing in the end zone, but it took (the officials) 12 seconds to figure it out and the clock ran out,” Clarksdale Lee coach Robert Daniels said. “We told (the officials) if we didn”t get it we want to line right back up on the ball and run it again. It took 10 seconds, I guess, to figure out whether we scored.”
Even with Buxton running wild, Heritage Academy didn”t put the game out of reach until 2:30 remained in the fourth quarter, when Stance Henderson scored on a 15-yard run and then kicked the extra point.
Clarksdale Lee responded with a deep drive, but the drive stalled on Heritage Academy”s 15. The Patriots then ended their season in victory formation.
Neither team will advance to the playoffs.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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