Wild finish turns into emotional one for Stratford

AUGUSTA -- The emotions were still on display well after time had expired.

For some Stratford players and fans, the tears were difficult to stop. Others became philosophical, resigned to knowing that their team did just about everything it could to pull out a victory.

O'Showen Williams, who carried Stratford on his back at times during the Eagles' 35-28 GHSA Class A private school semifinal loss at Aquinas, was completely spent. He collapsed following the team's on-field postgame meeting, flat out exhausted from the evening's events.

After receiving medical attention, Williams, who had run for 134 yards and a touchdown and was in on several key plays during the Eagles' late comeback, was helped to his feet. He was eventually taken off the field on a cart.

Such was the nature of Friday's game. Stratford poured everything into a late comeback, rallying from a two-touchdown deficit in the final three minutes to tie things up, only to give up a touchdown and have to come up with another dramatic drive.

In the end, Stratford came up 5 yards short, with the final pass attempt coming oh-so-close to being successful.

"You just can't give up, it's as simple as that," Stratford quarterback Sim Patrick said. "Everyone rallied together and decided not to give up. And that's what made this special."

The road to that final play will surely be remembered as a bittersweet moment in Stratford football history.

Aquinas, which turned an earlier defensive stop at its 5 into an Irish touchdown with 6:37 to go to go up 28-14, appeared to have put the dagger into Stratford's season well before the game's finish. Worse for Stratford, Aquinas recovered the ensuing kickoff, a pooch kick the Irish had been kicking all night, and it appeared the Irish were well on their way to victory.

But the Eagles, who were shooting for a Georgia Dome trip in their second year back in the GHSA after more than four decades in independent leagues, weren't quite done.

Stratford needed to do three things to pull off the comeback. They were successful at all three.

PLAY DEFENSE

The first thing Stratford needed to do in order to execute its comeback was to get a defensive stop. The Eagles, who gave up 35 and 48 points to Aquinas in two previous meetings, had some defensive success in the first half, stopping an Irish series on downs in the first quarter and recovering a fumble in the second quarter. But Stratford just couldn't stop the Aquinas offense in the second half, yielding touchdowns on the first three Irish possessions.

After Aquinas recovered the pooch kick -- a point where some where starting to consider the game wrapped up -- Stratford's defense stiffened. The Eagles stopped Aquinas a yard short on a fourth-and-3 play, giving Stratford the ball at its own 38.

"It's just who they are," Stratford head coach Mark Farriba said. "I didn't say anything."

THROW THE BALL

The second thing Stratford needed to do was to get a passing game going.

Once Stratford got its defensive stop, the Eagles changed offensive formations. After operating out of the wing-T most of the game, the Eagles came out on a shotgun formation. They needed the passing game to click, which it eventually did.

Patrick had gone 1-for-6 through the air prior to the change to the shotgun. But, after an incompletion and a 1-yard loss after getting flushed from the pocket, he started to connect with his receivers.

Wisconsin-bound Quintez Cephus had no catches entering the game's final five minutes. But a 16-yard completion on third-and-11 gave Stratford some breathing room, and a 42-yard reception on the next play set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Williams that cut Stratford's deficit to eight.

"We knew with the look that they gave us that we could get QT (Cephus) alone, we could get O'Showen alone," Patrick said. "We had good matchups across the board."

Patrick completed 3-of-6 passes in Stratford's final three possessions, racking up 99 yards to finish with 115 yards for the game.

MAKE THINGS HAPPEN

The third thing Stratford needed was some big special teams play.

Place-kicker Jake Jamison, who missed the extra point following Williams' touchdown when the ball struck the right upright, looped an onside kick attempt straight ahead, just over the heads of Aquinas' front-line kick return players. The ball fell into open space, and Stratford won the race to the football.

Aided by a late hit call on Aquinas, Stratford took over at the Irish 23. Kasey Sanders (112 yards, three touchdowns for the game) immediately scored, giving the Eagles two touchdowns within 15 seconds, but Stratford still needed a successful two-point conversion to tie the game.

Stratford ran a reverse on the conversion attempt, with the ball eventually going to Cephus, the Eagles' starting quarterback last year. Patrick worked his way downfield during the reverse, setting himself up as a receiver.

It was a play Stratford tried at the start of the fourth quarter, one that wound up being an incompletion. This time, however, Patrick made a diving catch to tie the game with 2:38 to go, an improbable reversal from a couple of minutes earlier.

"I sort of counted them out too early," Aquinas quarterback Liam Welch said. "They know how to make a close game; we've seen it the last two years."

BACK AND FORTH

Even after accomplishing those three things, Stratford still had to deal with one more Aquinas scoring drive.

Like he had in the two previous meetings, Aquinas running back D'Angelo Durham had success against Stratford's defense. After rushing for 172 and 261 yards against Stratford earlier in the season, Durham wound up rushing for 179 yards and two touchdowns in the semifinal.

His two carries for 25 yards on Aquinas' final drive put the Irish well into Stratford territory, setting up a 27-yard scoring pass from Welch, who has committed to Samford, to younger brother George Welch with 1:01 to play.

The older Welch wound up with one of his best passing nights of the season, completing 14-of-18 passes for 227 yards and two touchdowns, both to George Welch.

Even after all of that, Stratford put itself in position to force overtime. A 33-yard kickoff return by Williams set Stratford up at the Aquinas 47, and a 41-yard Patrick-to-Williams pass gave Stratford a first-and-goal at the Aquinas 6 with 42 seconds to go.

But, for the nine seniors on the Stratford roster, the end of the season came soon after. A couple of rushing attempts failed to advance the football, and a clock-killing spike on third down set up a heartbreaking finish for the Eagles: a Patrick pass that just eluded the grasp of tight end John Michael O'Quinn with 12 seconds remaining.

"It was going to be a bootleg pass," Patrick said. "QT had a slant corner to the back pylon, and John Michael had a drag. I saw John Michael with a little window, but it just didn't squeak in there right on the catch.

"We didn't expect to get this far (in the postseason), but we knew we were capable of it. And to know that we accomplished that was really nice."

This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Wild finish turns into emotional one for Stratford ."