Hornets fight to pick up second win
HELENA -- The Chelsea High School football team found a way Friday night to change a familiar story.
The Hornets have had some rough times this year, getting down early and never being able to recover. However, on the road at Helena and down double digits in the first quarter, Chelsea found a way to fight back and pick up its second win of the season, 24-17.
“It shows their resilience,” Chelsea head coach Chris Elmore said. “That’s the way the whole season has gone. We’ve had bad stuff happen early a lot this year and gotten behind and just haven’t been able to get back over the hump, but tonight they were able to. That’s a credit to our kids not panicking. They could have easily said, ‘Ah, here we go again. Same thing, same old story.’ But they didn’t and found a way to get back in it and win.”
Things didn’t look good for the Hornets (2-7, 2-4 Class 6A, Region 3) from the get-go. The first play was a 55-yard run by Helena’s Matthew Williams. Ralph Holsey scored on the next play to give the Huskies a 7-0 lead just 26 seconds into the game.
Chelsea followed with a stalled drive that ended in a 22-yard field goal by Tanner Middleton, and Helena (1-8, 1-5) drove 63 yards in eight plays to extend its lead to 14-3 with more than three minutes still left in the opening quarter.
That’s when the game slowly started turning.
Chelsea freshman running back Collier Blair capped a 15-play, 63-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to cut Helena’s lead to 14-10 early in the second quarter. The Chelsea defense followed by forcing Helena to turn the ball over on downs and holding the Huskies to a field goal just before half.
At halftime, Elmore had a simple message for the Hornets: don’t be superhuman, just do the ordinary things.
“We came up with this Monday at practice. We said, ‘Don’t go out and be superhuman. We don’t need you to make superhuman plays. Go out and do the ordinary things well,’” Elmore said. “That’s something we’ve talked about but haven’t done this season very well. I said, ‘Just do that and make the simple plays. If you make the simple plays then we’ll have a chance.’”
Chelsea responded in the second half by continuing its game and making several big plays.
The first came following the Hornets’ stalled drive out of halftime when Reid Burleson recovered a fumbled punt on the Helena 30. Six plays later, Blair worked his way 25 yards to the end zone on a screen pass from Turner Griffin to tie the game 17-17.
Chelsea was able to take its first lead on its ensuing drive when a 15-yard Helena punt gave the Hornets the ball on the Huskies 32-yard line. Chelsea gave the ball to Blair or Kendrick Simpson on eight of the drive’s nine plays, with Blair punching it in from a yard out to make it 24-17 with 4:16 left in the third.
For the remainder of the game, the Hornets defense played stingy. Scott Arnold intercepted a pass midway through the fourth quarter, and Chelsea forced a turnover on downs with two minutes left and Helena just outside the red zone to seal the win.
“We had some huge stops,” Elmore said. “After those first two stops (in the third quarter), the defense probably couldn’t have played any better.”
Blair finished the game with 74 yards rushing and a touchdown and 25 yards receiving and a score. Simpson rushed for 172 yards and Griffin threw for 42 yards and a touchdown.
Chelsea closes the regular season at home on Friday against Cullman.