Howard tops Central in thriller

After what happened Friday night, Howard and Central can safely say they have a rivalry.

In a game that was back and forth all night, Howard bet the game on a two-point conversion attempt in the final minute to take the lead against Central at the Ed DeFore Sports Complex. Then the Huskies sweated out a final drive by the Chargers, a drive that nearly flipped what went into the record book: a 30-29 Howard victory.

It was a finish that left both head coaches proud of the effort that was put forth.

“If anybody in Macon is saying that football is dead, they should be ashamed of themselves,” Central head coach Jesse Hicks said. “Congratulations to (Howard head coach Barney) Hester; his kids played a tremendous game. But there’s no hanging heads over this one.

“I know I say there’s no moral victories, but I’m proud of what these kids did.”

Courvoisier King’s 1-yard run with 38 seconds remaining, set up by a 32-yard pass play from King to Alphonso Stephens, brought Howard to within a point of Central. Following a couple of timeouts, Howard lined up for the two-point conversion attempt. JaQwun Stinson ran a route to the right flat out of the backfield, and King found him for the score.

Hester said the plan was to go for the two-point attempt from the beginning.

“Just go for it, go for the win,” Hester said. “We were here to win.”

But the game wasn’t over.

Ivory Childers’ kickoff return gave Central the ball at its own 45 with 30 seconds on the clock. After a first-down drop, a 17-yard pass from Derrick Evans to Childers and a 16-yarder to Denterius Hogan put Central in Temia Flint field goal range with 8.4 seconds to go.

An offside penalty on Howard took the ball to the Howard 17, where Flint had a 34-yard attempt lined up. His kick had the distance, but it went wide left.

“We just had to execute and finish,” said Stinson, who ran for 150 yards on 19 carries. “Stay humble and finish.”

Central scored the game’s first two touchdowns, only to Howard to even things up in the second quarter.

Central went ahead 21-14 on Evans’ 14-yard pass to JaQuavious Pennymon with 4:24 to go in the third. Howard came back to take a 22-21 lead a little more than a minute into the fourth quarter on Stinson’s 40-yard scoring run and a 2-point run by King that came from the 1 after a Central penalty.

A fumbled handoff at the Huskies’ 42 with 5:15 remaining set up a go-ahead touchdown for Central. The Chargers needed just three plays to set up a 23-yard scoring pass from Evans to Denterius Hogan with 4:21 remaining. A two-point pass from Evans to Kameron Adkins put Central up 29-22, setting the table for the wild finish.

Evans completed 17-of-31 passes for 295 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran for a score.

“That Central quarterback had a thousand yards, didn’t he?” Hester said. “We hadn’t stopped him all night long. Somebody needs to take a look at that kid.”

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 11:25 PM with the headline "Howard tops Central in thriller ."