TIGERS, FLAMES DEFEND HOME TURF
Barrett Crosby dropped back in the secondary near the end of the first half on Friday with his Tokay Tigers trailing by a touchdown, and snagged the pass from Kennedy quarterback Omar Sofizada.
As soon as he had the ball in his hands, he was thinking touchdown. About 45 yards later, he was in the end zone and the Tigers had a 13-12 lead they would not give up again en route to a 26-18 victory and a 3-0 start to the season.
“I was playing the seam. I was protecting the 4th down marker,” Crosby said. “(I was thinking) touchdown. Yeah. The hole was there.”
It didn’t come easy, though.
Kennedy threw an athletic team at the Tigers, and as an extra wrinkle, the Cougars only punted once, backed up against their own end zone early in the game.
“We set up our scout punt team the way that they set theirs up, and I don’t even know if they punted tonight,” said Tokay coach Collin Rhoads. “On their own 30, fourth and long.”
The teams started sluggish, with a scoreless first quarter that saw Tokay’s Ellias Castro and Alessandro Garcia grab interceptions, only for the Tigers to cough up a fumble on Kennedy’s 4-yard line.
Tokay scored first on a 4-yard Crosby run — the sophomore did plenty of damage on offense, finishing with 117 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
“They like to show blitz, heavy blitz packages,” Crosby said. “So just hit the hole.”
Kennedy responded with a 23yard touchdown pass from Sofizada to Rajan Day, then took the lead after a long interception return by Kalaree Allen set up a touchdown run from Dushawn White Jr.
“They were talented, man. They had guys out wide, in the slot, they had some players,” Rhoads said. “They tested us, and they came out fighting. We were playing on our heels at first, but my team’s got a whole lot of fight in them.”
As time wound down on the first half, Kennedy faced a fourth-and19 on its own 32-yard line, and Sofizada heaved up a pass for Crosby’s interception and touchdown. Isaiah Gee hit the first extra point of the night to put the Tigers up 1312 at halftime.
After Kennedy’s first drive of the second half ended in a Castro interception in the end zone, Tokay marched 80 yards in 11 plays in a clock-eating drive that ended with a 5-yard Branden Moreno touchdown pass to Jason Evans.
“I’m just proud of these guys,” Rhoads said. “They knew they couldn’t just come out here and play and be 3-0, they had to go out and earn it tonight.”
Crosby added a 2-yard run up the middle with 2:22 remaining in the game for an extra cushion, which turned out to be necessary. With Sofizada out due to cramping, Elijah Franklin stepped in for Kennedy and immediately aimed for the end zone. After a pass interference call on fourth down extended the drive, Franklin hit on a short out route to Mekhi CallahanGray. A failed 2-point conversion attempt left Tokay up by 8 points, just needing to recover the onside kick for the win.
Kennedy kicked a squib through the line, and Tokay bobbled the ball before Isaac Delgado was able to fall on it and control it.
The last time Tokay had a 3-0 start was in 2013, a campaign that ended with an 8-3 record and a first-round playoff exit. Rhoads is trying not to let the team get ahead of itself.
“Really, it’s just the next one. We’re going to look at 4 is the next number,” Rhoads said. “I don’t really want us to be focusing on the record, just getting better every week, and we’re proving that. We’re fighting harder every week.”