QB Sneak

Chapter 9: Climbing the Mountain

We began to start a comeback, with a newly reinvigorated defense playing stout. A forced fumble caused by Bryce Ennis and Lyle Filler led to a Darius reception for a touchdown, making it 35-21 and proving my point. A foiled drive by Whitewater created PJ zipping upfield for a punt return score. 35-28. Nate hauled a touchdown in too, but we missed the two point conversion to make it an interesting 35-34 with 4 minutes to play. Whitewater tried to stall time with lengthy pauses between plays and short runs to chew the clock, but we had all three timeouts and used two.     A pressure play came on fourth and 4 with a stopped clock. 

All kinds of penalties would be called that quarter. Every other snap you would hear:

"Encroachment. Defense number 66."

"False start. Offense number 74."

"Illegal shift. Offense numbers 17 and 25."

"Facemasking. Defense number 1."

"Delay of game. Offense number 5."

"Neutral zone infraction. Defense number 60."

"Illegal touching. Defense number 21."

I didn't even know what illegal touching was. 

The rain and wind howled throughout the stadium as the white jerseys lined up in offensive formation. Wes and Knox, the assigned blitzers, were straining at the leash to rock the QB. The QB nervously called for the snap, Wes leaped over an offensive lineman, and a crunch was heard throughout the arena as their helmets collided. The QB's helmet flew off as Wes laughed maniacally, claiming another innocent QB's soul. We all cheered when Wes came up with the ball and scored, but we caught that yellow flag going up again and held our breath.

"There are multiple flags on the play.

Holding. Offense, number 78. Ten yard penalty.

Offsides. Defense, numbers 91 and 45. 10 yard penalty. Those penalties offset.

Targeting. Defense, number 91. 15 yard penalty. Number 91 is automatically ejected.

First down."

The crowd erupted in rage and boos. Wes was gone, our touchdown got called back, and we lost 15 yards. To be fair, Wes earned it. He purposefully smashed heads with that poor kid, but an ejection? Too far.

"WHERE IS HE?" Coach yelled almost in my ear. I assumed he was talking about Wes, but instead Devin Servant trotted over. "There he is. GO! Get in for Milton." Devin sprinted onto the field to take Wes' spot. Whitewater ended up stalling out and having to attempt a field goal.

"BLOCK TEAM GO! BLOCKERS, GO!"

Our block team went out to try and block the field goal.

"Marcus D'Antoine, number 39 on to kick a 35 yard field goal. Roberson holding, McCoy snapping." As soon as the ball was snapped, Arlo Martinez, Maikel Oliver, and Kekee Bush leapt up to block the kick. As the kicker booted the ball away, it hit Arlo square in the chest with a THUD.

"OWWW!" Arlo screamed as the ball careened to the sideline. Dustin Dunn, a freshman who had done his job of getting close to the action horribly, was closest to the ball, so he pounced. As he dove on the ball, it squirted out from under him, rolling a few yards on the ground into the arms of Salvatorè Cummings, a freshman DB.

"GET OUTTA BOUNDS!" Coach shouted as the crowd exploded. Salvatorè heeded Coach's command, and darted for the sideline. The blockers crowded around the freshman, cheering for that lucky recovery.

"D'Antoine's kick is blocked by number 41, Arlo Martinez, recovered by Meadow Ridge!"

 I hustled out with the gang, starting at our own 30 yard line. Through the rain, the bright lights of our state-of-the-art scoreboard shone.