Hornets outlast Eagles
The story of Friday night’s season opener between Chelsea High and Oak Mountain High wasn’t the punch in the mouth that the Hornets took to open the 2016 season. It was the way the Hornets overcame the tough beginning.
Chelsea dug quickly out of a 14-point hole, weathered the momentum change of a late Oak Mountain touchdown in the first half and made more plays in the second half to emerge with a hard-fought 49-33 victory over the home standing Eagles on a soggy night.
“I just think it’s because we’ve got a lot of seniors on the team,” said senior quarterback Matthew Marquet on the Hornets’ ability to overcome adversity. “We’ve all been there, we know what it’s like. Being hit in the mouth, it’s not how we wanted it to start, but I think if there was any group that would respond well, it’s our senior class.”
Certainly Marquet and Zalon Reynolds stepped to the front of the class on Friday night. Marquet calmly directed the offense, throwing for 118 yards and two scores and rushing for 66 yards and a touchdown. He also made sure that the ball got into Reynolds’ hands plenty of times. Reynolds, a 5-foot-7, 177-pound senior, gained 183 yards on 29 carries and scored four touchdowns, including three in the decisive second half.
“When (Marquet and Reynolds) are out there and we’re healthy, we’ve got a chance,” said Chelsea head coach Chris Elmore.
Chelsea needed every bit of the offensive production to hold off an Oak Mountain offense that looked sharp from the beginning. Behind quarterback Wyatt Legas and running back Daniel Salchert, the Eagles scored on their first two possessions. Salchert scored both on short runs.
The Hornets countered in the second quarter with a pair of touchdowns on a short pass from Marquet to Joshua Gregg and a 9-yard run by Reynolds. The Hornets missed the extra point following the opening touchdown but used a two-point conversion pass from Marquet to Gregg to tie the score at 14 with 1:41 left in the half.
However, Oak Mountain ripped the momentum away by quickly traveling 74 yards on eight plays. Legas found receiver Carson Bobo three times for 58 yards on the drive and Salchert capped the drive with a 1-yard scoring drive with nine seconds left before intermission.
Once again, though, Chelsea had an answer. Hunter Blackburn returned the second half kickoff 48 yards to the Oak Mountain 42-yard line and the Hornets needed just four plays to tie the game. Marquet scrambled 12 yards for the touchdown.
“Huge,” Elmore said of the beginning of the second half. “We talked about the end of the second quarter, there was a huge series of plays, and we weren’t able to stop them. For us to come right back and go score, obviously, was probably the difference. If we had gone down 28-14, I don’t know if we could have won.”
Obviously, it still wasn’t easy. Oak Mountain answered immediately, driving 59 yards, with Legas connecting with Bobo on a 3-yard touchdown pass. The Eagles lead remained at 27-21 after the two-point conversion failed.
What happened on the following three series was the difference in the game, as Chelsea drove 65 yards on 10 plays to retake the lead. The drive featured a fourth and 1 conversion pass from Marquet to Gregg and ended on a 4-yard scoring pass from Marquet to Jay Vickers. Tyler Thomas’ extra point gave Chelsea a 28-27 lead with 3:43 left in the third quarter.
The Hornets followed with what may have been the biggest play of the game in a game filled with big plays. And the play came from the Hornets’ defense when junior defensive end Warner Wright fell on a Legas fumble on Oak Mountain’s first play from scrimmage. Two plays later, Reynolds squeezed in from a yard out and the Hornets enjoyed a 35-27 lead.
“That probably was the separation point right there,” Elmore said. “That gave us a little bit of a cushion and we were able to finish it out.”
However, the Eagles didn’t go away quietly. They trimmed the deficit to 35-33 with 5:21 remaining when Jaylin Gaines ended a long drive with a 1-yard scoring run. A two-point conversion pass narrowly failed but Oak Mountain had the momentum. Three minutes later, Reynolds was back in the end zone after a 3-yard run and he closed the scoring in the final minute with an 18-yard touchdown run.
Despite the loss, the Eagles got a strong game from Legas, who threw for 286 yards and rushed for 31 yards. Oak Mountain wide receiver Noah Egan had nine catches for 147 yards and Salchert rushed for 85 yards on 19 carries.