It’s true in life and maybe even more so in in football — luck is a two sided coin, one side fortuitous, the other side oddly cruel. The much anticpated and hyped first playoff meeting between the unbeaten pair of Louisa County and Eastern View lived up to its billing in the Region 4B semifinals. So much so that something funky, something crazy had to happen to decide the outcome. The teams were just too even for it be anything else.
For more than six of the last seven minutes of the fourth quarter, it seemed like a missed extra point by the Cyclones was going to be the dagger. It wasn’t. With 24 seconds on the clock, Eastern View snapped the ball, quarterback Matt Lowry rolled left and evaded the pass rush, he slung the ball in the ballpark of where Blake Leake was supposed to be. The pass was tipped, not once, but twice by Louisa defensive backs. It was after the second tip that Leake just happened to snag it, reverse field and take it to the endzone for a 70-yard touchdown with 4.4 seconds left. In just under 20 seconds, Eastern View coach Greg Hatfield went from thinking his team was going to lose because of an extra point, to ensured of a 19-14 win after his defense ended the game on a sack on the next play from scrimmage.
“We just didn’t quit,” Hatfield said. “That’s the worst we’ve been on offense all season but you have to credit Louisa’s defense with that. But we didn’t quit. I was really just thinking about getting into field goal range at the end and hoping for the best. You want to throw a short pass there, and then Lowry — here’s the thing, when he moves his feet he keeps his eyes down field and he went big. We got lucky. We made a play and what a freaking play. I mean, you have to laugh and say yeah, sure, just like we drew it up. Unbelievable. And we were on the other side of that feeling last year. We know what this is like, the script flipped for us.”
That Leake’s pass was tipped seemed cruelly poetic, driving the knife deeper in the Lions fans and sideline by underscoring just how close they were to a win. It had a “how fitting” vibe to it considering the first play in the fourth quarter in a 7-7 ballgame was Lowry getting intercepted when Louisa’s Alex Washington just missed an interception, but managed to get a piece of and Jarrett Hunter was able to complete the pick, also reverse field and set the Lions up with the ball inside of the Cyclones 20 yard line. After Hunter moved the sticks on a short run on fourth and one, he punched the ball into the endzone on the very next play from a yard out to make it 14-7, giving his team its first lead of the game with 9:50 to play.
Eastern View answered almost immediately. The Cyclones’ offense did very little yardage wise in the first three quarters, but in the fourth, running back Trey Holmes finally got some open space and with a pair of broken tackles, he was able to take off for a 54-yard touchdown run and seemingly tie things up. But the point after kick sailed just barely wide right and brought the Louisa sidelines and stands back to life. It was almost as if Holmes’ touchdown hadn’t happened.
The Lions defense came up with a handful of fourth down stops but none bigger than the tackle that senior linebacker Brandon Smith made on a pass from Lowry to Leake where he kept Eastern View short of moving the chains. That gave Louisa the ball with decent field position and three minutes to kill. The Lions appeared well on their way to icing the game, but a trio of penalties backed them up and they were finally forced to punt. Still the silver lining was pinning Eastern View at it’s own 10-yard line with no timeouts and just 1:30 to play.
That’s when Lowry and Leake took over and made the big play and sent the Cyclones stands and sidelines into a frenzy. It didn’t seem possible, but then it was.
“All the hard work in the offseason, you just have to believe that everything can happen,” Leake said. “We never quit, I caught it and from there it was no doubt.”
From the Louisa sidelines, it was a different mood, one of helplessness. To be so unlucky, it seemed unfair.
“Two of our kids tipped that ball, made a great play on that ball and it just floated in the air and (Leake) caught it and just ran it in,” Patrick said. “What do you do? What do you do?”
Before the exchange in the fourth, there was little to talk about outside of both defenses playing absolutely up to their reputations. The Cyclones took the lead right out of the gate in the first quarter with Josh Brown coming up with an interception with Louisa pinned back in its own endzone on an odd, broken play to set the visitors up with first and goal from the the Lions three yard line. The very next play was a 3-yard TD run from Lowry and it was quickly 7-0, just 90 seconds into the contest. Making matter worse for the Lions was that they fumbled the ball at midfield on their next drive. Ultimately though, it set up Louisa for a big swing of momentum.
Louisa answered by getting a stop on fourth down to take over with reasonable field position. Then Hunter finally got some space to run on a field that was not exactly traction friendly. The junior almost scored on his 56-yard scamper and Kalup Shelton finished the job right there afterwards on a 3-yard run to make it 7-7 with 4:55 left in the first. Suddenly the mood was different in the stands in the Jungle.
From there it was great defensive effort after great defensive effort from both squads. The Lions had a chance at some points late in the second quarter and instead of trying for it on fourth and long from the 11-yard line, they opted for a field goal attempt that went awry on the snap.
The third quarter was a chess match between punters. But in the first seconds of the fourth, the slow trench warfare turned into blitzkrieg with both teams landing serious haymakers. Unfortunately for Louisa, they just happened to be on the side that was just one freak incident away from advancing to face Dinwiddie for a Region 4B championship.
“Damn, they just had more points than us at the end of the game,” Patrick said. “I said (to the team) I’m going to hold my head high. We played our asses off tonight. It was a heckuva a ball game to coach. I’m sure it was fun to watch. But it just sucks coming out on the losing end.”
After his postgame huddle, Patrick spoke at length to a largely underclassmen-led team, and of course spent plenty of time with his 17 seniors. After joining them for one last pushup drill in the mud, he and his first team as a Lions head coach walked the field one last time under the lights.
“It was fun, man,” Patrick said. “My senior class was fun to coach.”
In the last two years, the Class of 2019 at Louisa finished 25-2. That’s quite the mark and for this group to go 11-1 with so many new players in the mix this year, it underscores just how much a small group of relatively experienced players were able to accomplish this year in what was supposed to be a total rebuild, not such a reload. So it was with that in mind that senior lineman Robbie Guinn said goodbye for the night to his coach, the last player to walk away from the midfield meeting of seniors.
“You guys have almost your entire line back, you’re going to be fine,” Guinn said. “Go out next year and win it all for me will you!?”
In an instant classic like this one with Eastern View and Louisa County, there was going to be a team just heartbroken, miserable and another smiling from ear-to-ear. It was in the cards. The Jefferson District saw what a Lions retooling looked like after a mass senior exodus in a Class 4A state runner up showing from 2017. What does 2019 look like when so many key pieces from 2018 return to the field? Not friendly that’s for sure.
“It sucks, but… get back to work,” Patrick said. “Get back to work.”
If there’s one thing Louisa does every year, it’s capitalizing on a bitter taste and making it work for itself in the offseason. That’s how this program was built in the first place. Everyone can rest assured that November 2018 is going to mean something to the class of 2020.
