Northwestern falters, Gaffney uses walk-off TD in overtime to earn trip to SC semis
On a Friday night when everything that could’ve gone wrong did — on a night of running-into-punter penalties and muffed punts and mishandled snaps and uncharacteristic turnovers — one of the only things the Northwestern football team could rely on was its defense.
And the Trojans needed at least one more moment of magic.
It was third down. Overtime. Gaffney on the 1-yard line. Northwestern had the first possession of overtime and kicked a field goal to make the score 13-10, so all Gaffney needed was a touchdown to extend its season and end Northwestern’s.
Running back Tyler Smith took a snap from the wildcat. He evaded tacklers left, got hit behind the line of scrimmage and lunged — and before he could lift himself from the bottom of the pile of players, he could hear the roars from the visiting sideline.
That was it. Touchdown. The Gaffney football team, backed by a Gaffney town that showed up in Rock Hill to support its bunch and nearly outnumbered the Northwestern fans in District Three Stadium, was already busy celebrating.
The scoreboard read 16-13, Gaffney.
Gaffney is headed to an Upper State championship game. Northwestern’s season — one that was pretty much flawless for 11 straight weeks before this one — is over.
“I told them that it’s going to hurt, and it should hurt, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Northwestern head coach Page Wofford told reporters postgame. “And I can’t tell them how to react or respond to that situation. But I think when they look back in a couple days, a couple weeks, or even a few hours, they’ll see what we accomplished this year and they’ll realize, like everyone in the state realized — that this program took another step forward this year.
“This was not a failed season like that by any means. This was just another big step forward for Northwestern football.”
Northwestern’s costly mistakes
The scoring began like it has for the Trojan offense all year on Friday night — early.
With 7:10 remaining in the first quarter, the Northwestern offense put together a solid drive that was punctuated by a Kanoah Vinesett 25-yard field goal, which put Northwestern up over Gaffney, 3-0.
The second quarter was also familiar to Northwestern. With 10:51 remaining in the half, Northwestern’s accomplished senior quarterback Will Mattison lofted a beautiful pass in a crowded right corner of the end zone — and it found the hands of junior Elijah Caldwell, who held onto it even after getting hit for a 19-yard touchdown. Trojans up, 10-0.
That’s the score the first half would end with, which wasn’t necessarily a positive for the Trojans. (At the half, Northwestern notched 246 yards on 37 plays, while Gaffney only notched 73 yards on 30 plays. The Trojans dominated everywhere besides the scoreboard.)
Then, in the second half, the game slowly came undone.
The mistakes started small: With five minutes left in the third, the Northwestern defense forced a punt, but it was a short one and hit the back pads of a Trojan and turned into a fumble that Gaffney recovered. Gaffney started its ensuing drive from the Trojan 34.
That same possession, a few plays later, Gaffney set up for a short field goal and the Trojans ran into the kicker to extend the drive and keep the defense on the field. At the time, the penalty felt inconsequential, as the defense made a strong stand and forced a 21-yard field goal with 11.3 seconds left in the third quarter to keep the lead. 10-3.
Murphy’s Law — “everything that can go wrong will go wrong” — persisted after that in Rock Hill. The miscues didn’t stop: With 10:44 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Trojans set up for a punt, but the snap caught Northwestern punter Greer Hopkins by surprise and turned into a fumble. Hopkins recovered, but the loss gave the Gaffney offense another start of possession in the red zone.
And less than a minute later, running back Smith took a snap from the wildcat and pummeled into the end zone from 5 yards out to tie the game at 10.
“I’ll take full responsibility,” Wofford said. “The punt situation, we had a lot of momentum when we got rid of the football there, and we put our defense in a really bad spot. They had the ball almost the entire third quarter because we kept letting them sustain drives by penalties or by this, that or the other. And it’s tough to come back from that. That falls on the head coach, and I take full responsibility for it.”
Wofford added: “Everything that could’ve gone wrong tonight went wrong — from the penalties, to the bad play-calling from me, to the injuries, the cramps, stuff that we haven’t had to deal with all year, it all just kind of came in one half of football. And we still gave ourselves a chance to do it, even after all that.”
Before everyone in District Three Stadium knew, it was 4th and 2 with 59.2 seconds remaining. The Trojans were 27 yards away from a score. That’s close enough for a 44-yard kick — a distance well-within the range of N.C. State commit and North-South All-Star senior kicker Kanoah Vinesett.
A kick would’ve put the Trojans up three with less than a minute left.
But the Trojans elected to go for it. And the fourth down attempt failed.
When asked how he came to the decision to go for it instead of kicking a go-ahead field goal, Wofford didn’t provide a hefty explanation: “We thought we could get the first down,” he said.
The play ultimately forced overtime — the only period of play Gaffney truly commanded.
Stats leaders
The Trojans won this game virtually everywhere but on the final scoreboard. (Northwestern gained 364 yards of total offense; Gaffney gained 197.)
Thanks to untimely penalties, for instance, the Trojans lost the possession battle 36:31 to 23:29.
Some Trojans still had stand-out nights: Mattison — who did close to everything right in his final game as a senior, lowering his shoulder and taking hits when he needed to on crucial run plays — completed 18 of 30 passes for 168 yards and a touchdown and an interception. He threw to Caldwell (seven catches, 59 yards, one touchdown), Gerrell Watkins (five catches, 52 yards), William Brooks (three catches, eight yards) and Drennon Faile (one catch, 26 yards).
Mattison also threw to his trusted running back Turbo Richard (two catches, 23 yards), but the sophomore made his name on the ground. He surpassed the 1,000-yard rushing mark this game after his 29-carry, 156-yard performance Friday night.
Michael McMullen also had an interception right before the end of regulation, which proved to be inconsequential.
As for Gaffney? The visiting team was led by Smith (12 carries, 32 yards and two touchdowns), Ken Littlejohn (12 carries for 45 yards) and Grayson Loftis (130 yards passing).
Several Northwestern players streamed out of the locker room with their jerseys still on after the game, tears in their eyes. Junior offensive lineman Jordan Knox — who’s set to have a fantastic senior year, one that will probably be accompanied by more Division I high-major offers — sat on his helmet in the end zone with a blank stare as the last few crowd members filed out of the stadium.
“If you look at what they accomplished and where they came from, it wasn’t two years ago when we were 2-8. The program was floundering,” Wofford said. “They’ve come in and bought in, and that’s the saddest part for me, is not being able to go to practice with these guys on Monday.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 12:16 AM.
.jpeg)