White House 24, Beech 20 (9/26/08)

There is an easy solution for the series between Beech and White House. Eliminate the first three quarters, flip a coin to see which team is leading and let the other squad start its final drive in the defensive red zone. No matter how you slice it, the game always seems to end this way – and Friday night’s epic slugfest was no exception.

The Blue Devils rallied from 10 points down with seven minutes to play and held Beech inside the 15-yard-line in the final minute to preserve a 24-20 victory at Dewey H. Whitson Stadium, evening both teams at 4-1 for the year.

A bobbled punt with 10 minutes left put White House in position to cut the margin at 20-10, and DeMarqus Payne took White House on his back and muscled through to the endzone with a bruising 13-yard touchdown run with 7:28 to play. He broke four tackles, shook off a vicious sandwich hit and pummeled his way to score for a 20-17 margin.

With the defense forcing a three-and-out, Payne then completed a five-play, 56-yard drive with a 10-yard run to the corner of the endzone to give White House a 24-20 edge with 3:37 to play.

Previous to the scoring drives, White House had run just 17 plays on five consecutive drives.

“I think the whole night was momentum swings back and forth between two teams going at it,” said White House head coach Jeff Porter. “Once we got it in the fourth quarter, our kids just refused to give it up.

“Payne made his mind up that he was going to carry this football team. I hope we all respond with the kind of effort he showed in the second half. We don’t like to single out individual efforts, but you can’t ignore how inspiring his run was to our football team and how big it may be for the rest of our season.”

But Beech wasn’t done. The Bucs marched to the White House 15-yard-line with a 39-yard completion from Matt Shanes to Jonathan Sites and then a 17-yard rush from Bobby Huey. Aussie Light, Zach Duty and Blaine Boone blew up the first down run for a loss of three, then Duty and Matt Parker swarmed Huey out of bounds on second down to stop the clock with 1:03 left.

Matt Mosley and DeMarqus Payne broke up a third down pass and Shanes was flushed out by Light and Jonathan Duke on fourth down, with Kody Littles making the solid final tackle at the White House 16. Payne ran it three times to end the game and finished with a season-high 131 yards and two touchdowns.

“We had a good stop on first down, Duty and Parker made a good read on the screen, then we broke up the pass and Littles made the stop on fourth down when the pocket collapsed,” Porter said. “I think that was one of the big things about the first half – we couldn’t make consecutive plays on defense.”

Beech dominated total yardage, time of possession and number of plays, but the critical turnover swung the game back in favor of the hosts late – following a disaster series of mistakes for the Blue Devils.

Beech led 12-10 at the break and White House drove to midfield before failing inches short when Light ran a fake punt. Then – in one quarter’s time – White House had three personal fouls, jumped offside twice, threw an interception and failed to convert on three offensive series. The result was not good as Beech sent Joshua Allen to paydirt on a one-yard run and a 20-10 lead in the third quarter.

All this, and White House even had a four-down goalline stand.

“We scratched the surface tonight – any time you come back 10 in the fourth quarter that’s big for your football team,” Porter said. “But we still have room to make significant strides and that will only happen when we shore up some of the mistakes that need to get taken care of.”

White House won for only the second time in nine meetings against the Buccaneers, and another in the rivalry ended with the game in doubt in the final minute. White House’s only other win was in 2005 when Adam Wiss intercepted Beech in the red zone with the Blue Devils leading 31-28.

“The series record doesn’t reflect how close this series has been,” Porter explained. “They have a good football team and I wish Coach (Anthony Crabtree) and their team the best the rest of the season.”

The Blue Devils got on the scoreboard first with a six-play march to the goalline and Matthew Gossett connected on a 24-yard field goal. But the drive stalled with an offensive offside penalty, one of nine critical penalties for 65 yards in the game for the Blue Devils.

Beech responded to take the 6-3 lead with Allen’s 36-yard run but the kick missed. Allen had 11 carries for 82 yards and two scores while Huey added 20 touches for 110 in the game, as Beech rushed for 255 yards.

Trox Greenwade passed 8-of-13 for 93 yards in the contest and an 8-yard pass to Chad Neal put the Blue Devils back in front in the second quarter, 10-6. But Huey scored from one-yard out with 5:01 to go before halftime and Allen was run out of bounds on the two-point conversion for a 12-10 edge.

The third quarter touchdown by Beech was the first third period points surrendered by White House all season.

Neal had three catches on offense for the Blue Devils and led the defense with 14 tackles, while linebacker Joey Smith made 13 stops, Zack Byrd 12 and Duty 11. Duty also had two catches at tight end.

White House hosts Sycamore for Homecoming next week.

“Homecoming is important for our school, our community and our program and no Homecoming is ever complete without the football team getting a win,” Porter said. “Sycamore brings the best out of us or the worst out of us. There is no in between. They always prepare their kids well and they do a lot of things that give us problems. We will see the same things again next Friday night.”

Coach Porter is looking for a good crowd again next Friday as White House attempts to go 2-0 in Region 4-3A.

“The 12^th man was big tonight,” he said. “The crowd was really into this football game and you could feel that in our kids and how they responded to it. I was really proud of our kids and I was really proud of the effort of our fans tonight.”

Box Score (Final)

Beech vs White House (09-26-2008 at White House, TN)

Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4 Score

----------------- -- -- -- -- -----

Beech............... 6 6 8 0 - 20 Record: (4-1,2-0)

White House......... 3 7 0 14 - 24 Record: (4-1,1-0)

Scoring Summary:

1st 05:28 WH - Matthew Gossett 24 yd field goal, 6-46 2:55, BEECH 0 - WH 3

03:41 BEECH - Justin Allen 36 yd run (Brock Haley kick failed), 5-80 1:47, BEECH 6 - WH 3

2nd 10:54 WH - Chad Neal 8 yd pass from Trox Greenwade (Matthew Gossett kick), 11-69 4:42, BEECH 6 - WH 10

05:01 BEECH - Bobby Huey 1 yd run (Justin Allen rush failed), 12-63 5:50, BEECH 12 - WH 10

3rd 02:09 BEECH - Justin Allen 1 yd run (John Taylor pass), 4-19 2:06, BEECH 20 - WH 10

4th 07:28 WH - DeMarqus Payne 13 yd run (Matthew Gossett kick), 4-37 1:22, BEECH 20 - WH 17

03:37 WH - DeMarqus Payne 10 yd run (Matthew Gossett kick), 5-56 2:16, BEECH 20 - WH 24

BEECH WH

FIRST DOWNS................... 18 13

RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............ 49-255 31-170

PASSING YDS (NET)............. 69 93

Passes Att-Comp-Int........... 6-4-0 13-8-1

TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS..... 55-324 44-263

Fumble Returns-Yards.......... 0-0 0-0

Punt Returns-Yards............ 2-9 1-9

Kickoff Returns-Yards......... 2-14 4-51

Interception Returns-Yards.... 1-26 0-0

Punts (Number-Avg)............ 3-34.3 3-38.0

Fumbles-Lost.................. 2-1 0-0

Penalties-Yards............... 3-25 9-65

Possession Time............... 27:17 20:43

Third-Down Conversions........ 5 of 10 3 of 8

Fourth-Down Conversions....... 0 of 2 0 of 1

Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 2-4 4-4

Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 0-0 0-0

RUSHING: Beech-Bobby Huey 20-110; Justin Allen 11-82; Matt Shanes 9-37;

Taylor Stewart 5-16; Deantrice Bennett 4-10. White House-DeMarqus Payne

22-131; Trox Greenwade 3-18; Cody Allen 3-12; Bryan Dixon 2-6; Aussie Light

1-3.

PASSING: Beech-Matt Shanes 4-6-0-69. White House-Trox Greenwade 8-13-1-93.

RECEIVING: Beech-Jonathan Sites 1-39; Taylor Stewart 1-18; Trevor Lovingood

1-12; Bobby Huey 1-0. White House-Chad Neal 3-41; Zach Duty 2-24; Matt

Parker 2-13; DeMarrius Payne 1-15.

INTERCEPTIONS: Beech-Justin Allen 1-26. White House-None.

FUMBLES: Beech-Justin Allen 1-1; Matt Shanes 1-0. White House-None.

SACKS (UA-A): Beech-None. White House-None.

TACKLES (UA-A): Beech-None. White House-Chad Neal 10-4; Joey Smith 5-8; Zach

Byrd 5-7; Zach Duty 8-3; Aussie Light 6-2; Kody Littles 5-3; Jonathan Duke

4-4; Matt Parker 4-4; Blaine Boone 2-4; DeMarrius Payne 2-2; Alfredo Louis

1-2; Bryan Dixon 1-2; DeMarqus Payne 2-0; Matt Mosley 0-2; Michael Barrett

0-1; Walter Draper 0-1.