North Union’s Drake Price (34) picks up yardage against River Valley. Also pictured is NU quarterback Anthony Padovano (2). The Wildcats fell to the Vikings, 19-18.
(Photo submitted)
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The Wildcats of North Union are a football team that has tried the patience of the NU faithful with their fourth quarter blunders this year. Add another one to this season on Friday, when the Wildcats let a win over River Valley slip through their fingers with just over a minute left in the fourth quarter.
The Vikings ended up notching a 19-18 victory when Tyler Spears rushed for a 30-yard touchdown to push the Vikings into the lead.
The Cats attempted to mount an offensive attack and made it to the Vikings’ 47-yard line before the clock read zeros, ending the 2017 season with a loss and a 4-6 record.
“In a game like this, it is the fight and the will to try and find a way to finish and the thing we have struggled with this year is finishing,” said North Union head coach Nick Hajjar. “Sometimes it is luck, sometimes it is a penalty or a big play, and whatever it is we just didn’t finish again tonight.”
The game started with the Cats in the driver’s seat when Carson Smith opened up the scoring with a visit to the end zone. He made a repeat trip to give the Cats a comfortable 12-0 lead after two missed PATs,
The Vikings had a few tricks up their sleeves. They showed the Cats a punt formation, but when the snap went back, the punter took off with green space in front of him all the way to the end zone. Carter Layton put the ball through the uprights to put seven points of the board.
The weather opened up and rain began to fall, considerably slowing the pace of the game.
Each side exchanged defensive blows early in the second half, trying to slip and slide their way though the now-saturated field.
The Vikings found the end zone first in the bad weather. Spears hit a hole up the middle from inside the 10-yard line to give River Valley a 13-12 lead.
RV decided to go for two points, but the conversation failed.
“We knew it was coming (rain), we just didn’t know when it was going to happen,” said Hajjar. “With the weather you never know what is going to happen.”
Hajjar was exactly right. No one saw it coming, not even the Viking defense, when Smith made his third trip to the end zone.
He wheeled around the outside on a pitch play, found a hole and was gone for a 77-yard TD that gave command of the game back to NU.
“We hit a big one with a long run” said Hajjar. “Sometimes those just don’t happen in this type of weather. It turned into a grind and in the end, they made one more play than we did.”
The dreaded fourth quarter got the best of the Cats as the Vikings found a way to drive down the field and score a game-winning touchdown.
To end his season, Hajjar spoke about the emotion that goes in the game and his players.
“A lot of mixed emotions as you finish the season, but there is no emotion like the one the seniors are feeling right now,” he said. “The raw emotion of a loss, but it’s also the end of a journey, a long journey for a lot of them.
“I challenged the younger guys, as they move forward, to remember this feeling. That is what has to fuel them as we go into a hard off-season and try to prepare ourselves for next year.
“The first time you get back in that weight room some of those faces you have seen for the last four years are gone and then who is that next group?,” he said.
“Those juniors quickly become seniors, when they walked off this field now, the next time they play football they are seniors and there is big responsibility and everyone needs to understand that responsibility.”