Maybe a tough break on the spotting of the ball, and William Monroe walks off the field heart broken again. The difference in this game, one against sworn rival Madison County, is that at the end, when the game counted most, the Dragons made the plays they had to — answering the Mountaineers’ go ahead drive in the fourth, coming up with a stop in the redzone on fourth down, even if by just an inch, and then a game clinching fourth down conversion on their ensuing drive. In the end, the plays in the last half of the fourth went Monroe’s way and as such, they picked up their first victory of the year, in front of a very appreciative home crowd, 32-26.
“Our kids were determined this week,” said Monroe coach Jon Rocha. “I think they had finally had enough. When we got into these tight situations tonight, we didn’t buckle. We seized the moment. We talked about that all week. It had to happen.”
There were no shortage of lead changes in this one because for the most part, this game boiled down to a dueling banjo show between Monroe’s Malick Mallory and Madison’s Isaiah Smith. While Mallory spent most of the day pounding out the yardage after contact on inbetween tackle runs, Smith was elusive, simply slippery on the edge. Both finished with over 200 yards rushing, but the Dragons had just one more drive in them.
Madison started strong and drew first blood out of the gate on their opening drive with Chris Smith hitting Dre Twyman for a 25-yard strike to make it 7-0 just three minutes in. But as a theme all night, Monroe answered.
The Dragons got on board with their first drive as they rode on hard Mallory run after another before he scored on a 1-yard plunge. After a failed PAT it was 7-6.
The Mountaineers turned to Isaiah Smith and he delivered immediately with an electric 85-yard rushing touchdown where he slipped out of one tackle after the next to make it 14-6.
“That’s him, playing hard every game,” said Madison coach Stuart Dean. “He’s got a lot of heart and determination and just so much fun to watch. He makes a lot of big things happen in a hurry.”
The second quarter was quiet until Monroe marched down the field with Mallory and got Malique Shackleford and the passing attack going with Nick Hays. The Dragons tied the game up at 14-14 after a short Mallory rushing TD and Hays coming up with a 2-pt convert. The celebration was short lived though as Madison took three minutes to drive back down the field and punch in a 3-yard Isaiah Smith touchdown to make it 20-14 going into the break.
The second half started with Monroe scoring on its first drive. With Shackleford and the passing attack working, the Dragons were able to knot the game up once again. The junior quarterback hit Jordan Gray for a 6-yard touchdown to make it 20-20 with 7:48 left in the third. Then late in the third, Monroe took its first lead with Greg Sizemore punching in a physical 18-yard run, but the pat failed, leaving the game at 26-20.
“We are physically built to be a power rushing team and since we’ve switched to that mindset, this week we had 450-plus yards, the point total went up,” Rocha said. “It was up last week, and it’s up again this week. The kids are comfortable in this and it takes the decisions out of their hands, puts it ours for play calling and the kids are doing a great job with the execution.”
Madison scored twice from there to reclaim the lead. After Isaiah Smith set up first and goal from the 1-yard line on a nice screen pass from Chris Smith, the latter punched in a 1-yard keeper, and with a successful PAT the Mountaineers had a 27-26 lead with 7:30 to play.
“It went back-and-forth and that’s the way you’d expect this game to play out,” Dean said. “It just hurts that we came up just one play short, especially with all the offense we had behind us.
Monroe had one last scoring drive in it, and again with Mallory doing the gritty work early. From 15 yards out, Monroe gave the ball to Anthony Pritchett who went untouched to the endzone on an outside run to give the Dragons a 32-26 advantage.
The Mountaineers had five minutes to play with and they worked their way into Monroe territory, getting into the redzone. On fourth and one, Madison went to Chris Smith on an edge run, but he was stopped just an inch short of the first down, requiring a dramatic measurement. Then with less than 30 seconds to play, Monroe faced fourth and four on its short side of midfield. It was there that Mallory put one last mark on the game, getting the first down to kill the clock.
“It’s a great win,” Mallory said. “It’s homecoming, we’re playing against our biggest rival. It was just a great feeling. We’ve got a good offensive line, a great full back and it makes it easy to run behind for easy yards and so I can’t take too much credit. If they don’t block, I don’t get the yards.”
As for the call on fourth down, Rocha put it on his players.
“Man did I struggle with that,” Rocha said. “I turned to them on the sidelines and said, ‘Do you want this game?’ They said ‘Yes.’ And I said ‘Can you get this first down.’ They said ‘Yes’. It was on them.”
On the night Mallory finished with 25 carries for 210 yards and three touchdowns. Isaiah Smith had 238 yards rushing 25 carries.
Monroe (1-6) heads to Central next while Madison (2-5) hosts to Strasburg.
