If Hidden Valley head football coach Scott Weaver is looking for an off-season vacation spot, he might consider Las Vegas.
Friday night at Dwight Bogle Stadium, Weaver showed he can definitely roll the dice.
Watching his Titans look like a car stuck in snow for 3 1/2 quarters, Hidden Valley mustered a last second score that turned the tide for a stunning 11-10 win over rival Cave Spring.
Play for overtime ? Forget it. Go for two.
The Cave Spring defense had turned back every Hidden Valley opportunity through the first 42 minutes.
Things still looked bleak for Hidden Valley before quarterback Jake Smiley, filling in for starter Jeremy Rice who had suffered an ankle injury, got the Titans out of a 3rd-and-24 situation as the clock was winding down, and the Titans trailing 10-3.
Hidden Valley, out of timeouts, moved the ball to the Cave Spring 15-yard line with only 13.2 seconds left. For the Knights it looked like one last defensive stop would seal the deal.
As Smiley scrambled to dodge the Cave Spring rush, he saw senior wide receiver Jimmy Davis running laterally along the 10-yard line. Davis made the running catch near the center of the field and outraced the Cave Spring secondary on an angle to the left side of the end zone with 3.5 seconds left. The Titans trailed 10-9.
As the sizable Bogle crowd waited for the point-after to send things to overtime, Hidden Valley rushed onto the field and lined up in a power 2-point conversion formation.
Cave Spring head coach Tim Fulton headed onto the field to call a timeout, barely catching the attention of the officials. Hidden Valley returned to the same formation for the all-or-nothing outcome as the Knights stacked the line.
Smiley handed the ball off to senior Tariq Harris, who launched his body over the pile of humanity and well into the end zone for the 11-10 lead as mayhem erupted from the Titan faithful.
Cave Spring got the ensuing squib kick at the 50-yard line for a final play, but a short incompletion never came close to victory.
“The Cave Spring-Hidden Valley games are always wild,” Weaver noted. “Close games, a double overtime a couple years back. I thought we played 42 minutes of pretty lethargic football. and those last six minutes we came through. That’s a good Cave Spring team and they had a great game plan. They were 6-3 for a reason.”
“In the end, we didn’t make a play and they executed,” Cave Spring head coach Tim Fulton said. “There’s so many things; a play here, a play there, offensively and defensively. This one, you just drop it and move on. There’s no choice. We’ll put this one away and get ready for the playoffs.”
Harris, who has committed to UNC-Charlotte, said the Titans changed the play on the two-point conversion after Cave Spring called the timeout.
“They called my number and Bryant Bredburg told me ‘ you just follow my butt into the end zone’. I can’t even explain it in words. We always have the faith. We had to adjust to not having Nate (Atkins) and Mason (Dermott).”
Cave Spring led 3-0 at the halftime break with Tyler Garner’s 31-yard field goal the only score.
The Knights, still nursing the 3-point lead, looked to be in great shape early in the fourth quarter. Starting on the Hidden Valley 42-yard line, quarterback Alex Emery converted on a third down run before completing a third-and-long pass to the Hidden Valley 2-yard line. Two plays later, junior Tyler Rice took it in from a yard out to make it 10-0 with 9:56 left.
Hidden Valley finally got on the scoreboard with 6:21 left after Weaver called on Mykal Perdue for a 40-yard field goal attempt to make it a one possession game. Perdue connected with room to spare.
That set up the final drive and the jump by Harris that will be forever remembered in Titan football.
“It was an easy decision,” Weaver noted. “In that situation you give it to a Division-1 player.”
– Bill Turner