Bulldogs hold off Wildcats, 33-29

October 18, 2023 by Ken Lay

In a battle of high school football heavyweights, Oak Ridge came up short just as a late sack and interception sealed its fate.

The Wildcats, playing their first home game in five weeks, had their chances and their share of leads.

But in the end, they suffered a heartbreaking 33-29 loss to Bearden Friday night at Blankenship Field in a contest that resembled a postseason tilt.

After the Bulldogs took the lead, Oak Ridge had one final chance, but missed out because of two miscues.

“Credit to them,” Wildcats Coach Derek Rang said. “They drove down and scored.

“We get the ball back and we had a bad snap, which can’t happen.

“We just kind of ran out of yardage there. It’s a heartbreaker. We’ve just got to learn from this and get better.”

The Bulldogs culminated their comeback when Jayzon Thompson found the end zone on a 7-yard scoring scamper with 1 minute, 22 seconds left to play. The eventual game-winning touchdown was business as usual for the Bulldogs, who notched their sixth-consecutive win in 2023.

“We can be a no-huddle, up-tempo offense if we need to be, but we felt like we had over three minutes to go,” Bearden Coach Josh Jones said. “We had two timeouts.

“We just felt like we could run our offense. We didn’t need to panic right there, or anything.”

The Wildcats (6-2) took the lead with 3 minutes, 22 seconds left in the game when sophomore quarterback Blaine Stansberry connected with Brandon Heyward, the ORHS deep threat target, on an 83-yard scoring strike. Wildcats kicker Eli Pearson added the extra point, meaning the Bulldogs (6-2), needed a touchdown to propel themselves to victory.

After Bearden scored, Oak Ridge had one final chance. The Wildcats came up short, however, when Ethan Couvertiere intercepted a pass from Stansberry.

From there, the Bulldogs ran out the clock and celebrated a hard-fought road victory.

“Hats off to our kids. They kept battling,” Jones said. “They played as hard as they possibly could.

“That’s a really good football team we played in Oak Ridge. We just made one more play than they did tonight.”

The Bulldogs eventually picked up a key win, but the Wildcats scored first when Stansberry threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Almani Rembert, capping a 9-play drive that covered 64 yards that consumed four-and-a-half minutes.

Bearden would answer with a long drive of its own that ended with Daniel Kinney kicking a 32-yard field goal to pull his team to within 7-3.

The Bulldogs would score the next 17 points to open a 20-7 advantage as Drew Parrott had a 36-yard scoring pass to Sam Tummins. Kinney added another field goal to make it 13-7 with 3:06 remaining before halftime.

Parrott’s second TD pass of the night, a 24-yard effort to Tory Beaufort extended the Bulldogs advantage to 20-7 before a trick play by the Wildcats turned the tide with under a minute remaining until the break.

Rang reached in to his bag of tricks and it paid off when Heyward had a 58-yard touchdown toss to Will Presley with 53.4 seconds to go in the second stanza.

Bearden squandered a chance to extend its lead when Kinney was unsuccessful on a 29-yard field goal attempt with 2.9 seconds to go.

Rang had to feel good going into the locker room at halftime. And his team sustained its momentum after the break. The Wildcats took a 21-20 lead early in the third frame on a 4-yard TD dash.

“We throw the bubble pass just before half, and in the second half, we came out with some momentum,” Rang said. “It just kind of swung back to them in the end. Our kids are going to fight. We expect that from them and we’re proud of their fight.”

Bearden would regain the lead and pull ahead 26-21 on a 29-yard run by Beaufort early in the final stanza.

The Wildcats came back one more time and took a 29-26 lead on Stansberry’s 83-yard pass to Heyward.

Then, Bearden engineered the decisive drive before a mistake-filled final possession for the Wildcats that bogged down when Stansberry was sacked after bobbling a bad snap. He later threw the interception that all but ended the game.