Sometimes a game comes down to one play, one almost desperate gesture.
With 1:07 remaining and Potter-Dix clinging to an 18-14 lead and Wallace staring at fourth and a long three, the Wildcat sideline called for a flea flicker. Quarterback Landon Swedberg heaved the ball downfield, where it fluttered almost beyond the reach of a leaping, stretching John Marquardt.
Almost—for the receiver landed on his back at the two yard line, the ball perched like an ice cream cone in his hands.
Two off tackle dives later and Wallace held the lead.
“It’s a play we practice every day,” said Wildcat coach Gary Hager. Just before halftime they unveiled it, but the play bogged down. This time, he explained, “we’d set it up well.”
The host team resorted to a trick play thanks to the Coyotes resilient bend-but-don’t-break defense. Wallace failed to cross their own 20 on their opening drive. They stalled just past midfield on the next and turned the ball over on down the third time.
Of course, by then—midway through the first period—the scoreboard read 18-12. Potter-Dix had conceded touchdowns on a fumble recovery and a kick return.
“We killed ourselves,” said Coyote coach Dale Frerichs.
But for 47 minutes, the visitors dominated. Potter-Dix scored on their first play from scrimmage, when quarterback Luke Johnson hit Ty Ottoson on a little bubble screen. After two quick moves and a 54-yard spring, the Coyotes broke on top, 6-0.
Wallace evened things when linebacker Eric Koop scooped up an errant Potter-Dix snap and raced untouched into the end zone.
Barely two minutes later, Johnson found Ottoson again, this time flinging a 30 yard bomb and watching the stellar wide out walk across the goal line. Swedberg returned the ensuing kick for the equalizer. Johnson used the very next Potter-Dix drive more carefully—for about a minute, when hit Brady Knigge on a screen.
Knigge shed cornerback Taylor Doell with a nifty spin move and put the visitors on top, 18-12.
For a moment it seemed as if the two teams were prepared for a reprise of last year’s XX-XX spree. But the game settled into a sparring match. In one representative series, the Wildcats’ usually versatile Marquardt escaped Dustin Brown, but was slammed to the ground by Clint Serres for no gain. Koop picked up two yards off tackle before being swarmed by the Coyote defense. Then Jeff Maddox dragged Doell down just as he crossed the line of scrimmage. On fourth down, Brown and Aude stopped Swedberg cold on a keeper.
Meanwhile the Coyotes picked up consistent yardage on a combination of screens, drags and quick hitters, only to sabotage themselves—a fumble here, a penalty there. The most critical mistake came when a Wildcat blitz forced Johnson out of the pocket deep in his own territory. He located Serres, who hauled in the pass and cruised 68 yards for an apparent score.
An illegal block in the back erased the points, however.
“One play doesn’t make the difference in a game,” Frerichs pointed out with some frustration.
Instead, the turning point crept in silently, almost unnoticed. It started midway through the third quarter, the score still stalled at 18-12, when a Wallace drive straddled the 40, but consumed almost three minutes. Their next possession accomplished the same thing: little territory, but another couple of ticks off the clock.
Their time wasting was rewarded when Johnson failed to corral another errant snap, instead flicking it out of the end zone for a safety.
That was with 4:20 remaining in the game. Wallace then continued their rampage on the clock, eating up just over three minutes in an eight play slog from their own 36 to the Coyote 24, setting up the trick play and subsequent touchdown by Swedberg..
Toward the end, it seemed as if Potter-Dix’s defense may have worn down under the pressure, but both coaches dismissed the notion.
“They were tired, too,” Frerichs pointed out. “And we were switching guys in and out.”
“I was worried,” Hager agreed. “Potter-Dix played hard.”
Despite the end result, the game offers hope for the Coyote faithful. Wallace managed just the one offensive score against a tenacious Potter-Dix defensive unit. Talk of an Ottoson-Knigge fueled scoring machine may continue, but the opener demonstrates the team’s true foundation: an unrelenting set of linemen and linebackers.
The mistakes can be worked on.
“We have a by week,” Frerichs said. “We’ll fix things and be back in a couple weeks.”
Score by Quarters
Potter-Dix 18 0 0 0 - 18
Wallace 12 0 0 10 – 22
Coyote Statistics
Passing
Johnson 20-39 300 3 TD 2 INT
Aure 1- 1 2 0 TD 0 INT
Rushing
Gorsuch 1 -2
Knigge 1 -5
Johnson 2 -20
Aure 7 12
Brown 1 1
Receiving
Ottoson 6 139
Serres 1 15
Knigge 6 88
Maddox 4 55
Johnson 1 2
Aure 2 4
Brown 1 -1
