Fayetteville Junior High School Slips By Junior Cardinals, 28-20

FARMINGTON — Trouble began on the opening kickoff of a 28-20 junior high football loss Farmington absorbed against Fayetteville White Thursday, Sept. 28, at Allen Holland Field.

“We’ve been working all week on kicking it to a certain spot,” said Farmington head junior high coach Tracy Sutton.

He watched in frustration as the kickoff coverage broke down with Fayetteville returning the football to the junior Cardinal 15.

“They had a good return. We put our defense in a bad spot right off the bat,” Tracy Sutton said. “The kick didn’t kill us. We should have tackled better. We had them in fourth-and-9 and we jump offsides. We helped them offensively.”

Fayetteville took advantage and posted a 6-0 lead in the first quarter on a 17-yard touchdown pass. Their kick failed. They then added a 2-yard touchdown run and added a 2-point conversion to move in front, 14-0, early in the second quarter.

Farmington rallied with a pair of touchdowns before the half. Tailback DeCory Thomas broke a 41-yard touchdown run on a counter play and quarterback Tate Sutton ran for the 2-point conversion.

The junior Cardinals outgained Fayetteville in total yards 259-170, but were hurt by three turnovers. Terrion Swift scored on a 9-yard touchdown run to tie the game. When the 2-point conversion failed, the game was deadlocked at 14-all at the half.

The junior Cardinals took the lead in the third quarter on Thomas’ 2-yard run, but the conversion failed leaving Farmington with a 20-14 advantage. Fayetteville erased the deficit and took the lead later in the third on Kaden Martindale’s 2-yard plunge. Fayetteville kicked an extra-point to regain the lead, at 21-20.

One-point continued to separate the teams late into the fourth and final quarter. Fayetteville had the ball inside Farmington’s 30 at the three minute mark. Head junior high coach Tracy Sutton burned his last time-out stopping the clock with 2:03 left. On second-and-15, Farmington defenders stacked up a run as flags were thrown. The penalty stopped the clock with only seven seconds off the clock at the 1:56 mark. Fayetteville ran again on third-and-21 from the 22 and again Farmington stuffed the run. Fayetteville ran the clock down to 1:02, then called time-out to avoid a delay-of-game penalty.

On fourth and 21, Fayetteville threw the ball with a pass falling incomplete. A junior Cardinal defensive back nearly intercepted the football inside the five, but dropped the ball. Had he caught the ball and been tackled there, Farmington would have been backed up to their own goal line with the clock winding up. As things were the clock stopped on the incomplete pass and Farmington took over on downs at their own 22 with 56 seconds to make something happen.

Tracy Sutton said coaches went over those possibilities during the time-out and weren’t pleased with the near-interception in that situation.

“We just broke the huddle talking about that,” Tracy Sutton said. “We told the kids, knock it down, bat it down, don’t intercept it.”

The junior Cardinals looked like they had a chance when Tate Sutton completed a 29-yard pass to Collin Hummel, who got out-of-bounds at Fayetteville’s 49 with 48 seconds showing. But the next pass was incomplete and on second-and-10 a pass was picked off by Fayetteville’s Benjamin Bemis, who returned the ball 52 yards for a touchdown and the clock down to 29 seconds.

In that situation, once the pick was made, Farmington’s only chance was to allow the defensive touchdown because they were out of time-outs and Fayetteville would simply run out the clock. Fayetteville kicked the P.A.T. to take a 28-20 lead.

Farmington was hurt by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty during the runback which was marked off on the ensuing kickoff. Fayetteville kicked off from Farmington’s 45 and the ball went into the end zone for a touchback. Tate Sutton was sacked on first down and the team had to scramble with deep receivers running back to the line of scrimmage to get another play off.

“Go ahead run it,” Tracy Sutton yelled and the snap was made with 9 seconds to spare.

A short pass was completed but the junior Cardinal receiver was pinned against the sideline and desperately attempted an illegal forward lateral, which was intercepted by Bemis again. He was hit hard as time expired with Fayetteville winning, 28-20.

“We had opportunities, we had some 2-point plays we didn’t make,” Tracy Sutton said. “We helped them both ways with penalties, both offensively and defensively.”

“Our kids played hard, but you can’t give them extra plays. You can’t spot them points. I’m proud of our kids. I’m proud of our coaching staff. They did a good job.”