‘Just a gut feeling’: Clover uses onside kick to change fate, escapes Fort Mill with win
Three quarters into its game on Friday night in Bob Jones Stadium in Fort Mill, the Clover football team bet on itself.
The Blue Eagles had just evened the score at 14 apiece with seven minutes left in the third quarter, thanks to a 15-yard touchdown reception by Omari Davis. A Fort Mill penalty set the Blue Eagles up to kick off less than 50 yards away from the end zone.
“It’s just a gut feeling that you get,” Clover head coach Brian Lane told The Herald after the game. “I felt like it was the right time. I felt like nobody was expecting it. I felt like, being on their end, kicking it — everybody was just expecting us to kick it into the endzone and they’d get it at the 20. And so I just felt like everyone would be relaxed, so we just went for it.”
And it worked.
Clover kicker JB Potts tapped a perfect onside kick that his teammates swarmed to and recovered. And then, on the Blue Eagles’ ensuing possession, Clover running back Ron Johnson pushed the pile what seemed like a whole five yards and punched in a seven-yard rushing touchdown.
21-14, Clover.
The score didn’t change the rest of the way.
“Sometimes in the game, you just get a feeling about it,” Lane added. “That’s why as a head coach, you got to live with it or die with it. They could’ve gotten it, and there it is, but we got it. We needed some momentum, and we got the momentum.”
With the win, Clover moved to 1-1 on the season and 1-0 in region play.
Fort Mill fell to 0-2.
Notable: Fort Mill finds life in unlikely turnover
Through one half and four minutes on Friday night, the game looked like Fort Mill’s to lose.
On the first play of the second quarter — after a 31-yard screen pass connection between Fort Mill quarterback Kyle Neibch and freshman running back Will Alvarado — Alvarado took a handoff and bounced to the outside for a 40-yard score. 7-0, Fort Mill.
“That kid’s special,” Fort Mill head coach Rob McNeely told The Herald after the game.
That was the Yellow Jackets’ first lead of the 2020 season.
The Blue Eagles responded, though: Three minutes of game time later, sophomore quarterback Joe Boyd found a wide open receiver in Chance Sanders, who was running a fade up the left sideline. Sanders took it in for a score to tie the game, 7-7.
Said Sanders after the game of the big scoring play: “(Coach Lane) was like, ‘Be ready. The ball’s coming your way.’ And I was like, ‘Yes sir.’”
On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, though, Fort Mill defensive lineman Miller Shouse jumped a Clover screen pass and returned the interception for a touchdown. 14-7, Fort Mill. And then on the next Clover possession, in fact, the Blue Eagles fumbled, and the ball was recovered by Fort Mill linebacker Jack Noll.
But Clover proved resilient: Boyd found sophomore receiver Omari Davis, who made a defender miss and bulldozed another for a 15-yard touchdown after a Clover third-quarter stop.
Then came the onside kick and the Johnson rushing touchdown.
And then, with a minute and some change left to play in the game, Josh Marr effectively punctuated Friday night with an interception.
In two minutes of game time, this young Clover team upended its fate — and perhaps changed the course of its season.
“We had a bunch of sophomores out there tonight playing,” Lane said. “We just gotta take our lumps and try to win games. If they’re ugly and we win, we’ll take it.”
Clover was led by Sanders, who had five catches for 101 yards receiving and a touchdown; Chance Mackey, who caught five passes for 91 yards; and Boyd, who completed 13-of-27 passes for 229 yards and a touchdown.
Fort Mill was led by Alvarado, who ran 19 times for 79 yards; Brooks Rhinehart, who caught three passes for 32 yards; and quarterback Kyle Neibch, who completed 9-of-22 passes for 91 yards.
Quotable: ‘It was a huge play’
Sanders on viewing the game-changing onside kick from the sideline: “We had it called up, and Coach Lane was like, ‘The offense just needs to sit down. Don’t give it away. Don’t give it away.’ And we executed it perfectly, and I’m just glad our boys hustled and we got it. It was a huge play.”
Fort Mill coach McNeely on his team’s effort on Friday night: “When they get better as individuals, it makes the whole team better, the whole group better. ... You don’t just win or lose on Friday: You win or lose on Monday at practice, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on. This team showed us a lot of fight tonight. And I’m proud of them.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 12:08 AM.
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