The Game With Smithville

SMITHVILLE RALLIES TO BEAT O'HARA BY ONE POINT The Smithville Warriors football team patiently rallied from a 15 point halftime to force an overtime game with O'Hara and eventually pull out a 35-34 win in the first round of the Class 3 State playoffs. At no time did they hold the lead until the final play of the contest. O'Hara powered to a 20-6 first period bulge with three touchdowns. James Tillman, following a 20 yard pass reception by Joe Pepple from TJ White, rambled 54 yards for the Celtics' first score. Bryce Scovill's kick went wide however. It was to be his only miss of the day. A short four yard TD pass from Brent Hastings to Blake Fore tied up the score, but a two-point conversion attempt fell short. For O'Hara's second touchdown of the quarter, TJ White scored on a one yard plunge after the ball was brought to that location on an Aaron Stubblefield 26 yard pass reception. The Celtics got the ball back with an on-sides kick and were in the end zone in four plays. Danny Hernandez caught a pass for 29 yards before he was stopped, but Joe Pepple caught a scoring pass for 25 yards. Smithville got a touchdown in the second quarter on a quarterback sneak but once again the Warriors were unable to score on a two-point conversion attempt. Before the end of the second quarter, the Celtics scored on an 18 yard pass reception by Danny Hernandez to bring the halftime count to 27-12. The Smithville defense denied the Celtics any points in the third and fourth quarters. Meanwhile the Warriors were able to score a touchdown in each of those quarters along with a kicked extra point and a two point conversion that tied the scoree at 27-27. Their touchdowns materialized from an 8 yard pass from Brent Hastings to Blake Fore and an 11 yard run by Bryant Brant. Drew Sperry kicked the extra point for the first TD and Austin Baker ran in the two-pointer. O'Hara had the ball first in the overtime period, and wasted little time in scoring. Hernandez caught a 17 yard pass and Donnie Criswell ran the ball in the rest of the way. Smithville got their TD on just one 25 yard pass play from Brent Hastings to Andrew Townsend. The successful two-point convesion not only put Smithville ahead of the Celtics for the first time in the entire game, but was the winning play. TJ White who holds several all-time O'Hara passing records gained 274 yards on 16 completions. His main target was Danny Hernandez who caught seven for 138 yards and Joe Pepple who caught five for 82 yards. In O'Hara's eleven games of the year, James Tillman scored 96 points with Danny Hernandez and Bryce Scovill scoring 50 each.. Tillman gained 1,732 yards in the games placing him 7th in O'Hara's top career rushing yards. TJ White upped his career passing yards to 3,042 and is O'Hara's top passer; his closest competitor has 1,869 yards. White now also has the most passing yardage for a single season with 1,919 yards. Two seniors from this year's team moved to the top two spots in career passing receptions. Joe Pepple in his years at O'Hara caught 68 passes for 1,259 yards and Danny Hernandez caught 47 for 972 yards. Between the two of them, they scored 19 touchdowns. Finally senior Bryce Scovill finished his career extra points total with 128 points, far ahead of the number two place of 86..