Just as expected, the showdown between Noxapater and Nanih Waiya for the MHSAA Class 1A North State Football Championship was a classic.
In the end, Nanih Waiya’s 21-20 win before an overflow crowd of vocal, intense fans at Warrior Field on Friday night came down to three plays played on the same seven yards of turf just outside the South end zone. Oddly enough, all three of those were offensive plays for Noxapater, but resulted in nine points for the Warriors.
With the win Nanih Waiya, now 13-2 on the season advances to the MHSAA 1A State Championship game on Friday at 3:30 p.m. to take on Lumberton at M.M. Roberts Stadium on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
“I was proud of our defense,” Nanih Waiya head coach James Courtney said. “We bent and didn’t break. I”m proud of the way they performed.”
He said he had no doubt that the game with Noxapater — which had the arch-rivals meeting for the first time ever in a playoff situation — would be a battle. “We know at the beginning of the year they (Noxapater Tigers) were going to be there,” he said. “They are extremely good and well coached. The fans got their money’s worth for sure.”
Although disappointed in the outcome, Noxapater head coach Casey Orr was pleased with the fight he saw in his Tigers.
“They played their guts out,” he said. “You feel you won a game in every way except on the scoreboard, so it hurts. They battled to the end and tried to overcome some bad breaks. There are going to be things you face in life that are tough. You are going to get bad breaks and you have to keep fighting. I felt like we did that.”
With the loss the Tigers end the season at 12-3.
Here is a breakdown of those aforementioned game-changing three plays:
— With the game tied 7-7 late in the second quarter, the Noxapater defense stopped Nanih Waiya on four goal-to-go plays, eventually taking over on downs at their own three-yard line. However the next play resulted in a fumble into the end zone that was recovered by Nanih Waiya’s Blake Young for a touchdown with 3:35 left in the half. That gave NW a 13-7 lead that it held at halftime.
— Noxapater’s second offensive series of the second half saw the Tigers put together an impressive nine-play, 63-yard drive that saw Raheem Hathorn crash in from 7-yards out to put the Tigers up 14-13. It was the next offensive possession that turned out tone be huge in the game.
Following an excellent 43-yard punt by NW’s Trevor Holdiness that pinned Noxapater at the 2-yard line, the Tigers were eventually forced to punt for the first time all night from their own 7. The ball sailed over the punter’s head and out of the end zone, giving the Warriors a 15-14 lead with 41 seconds left in the third quarter.
— After Nanih Waiya’s Austin Sanders put the Warriors up 21-14 with a 1-yard touchdown run with 9:09 left in the game, the resilient Tigers marched right back down the field to cut it to 21-20 with 6:03 left on a 12-yard by Hathorn, who finished the night with 83 hard-earned rushing yards on 19 carries. The Tigers went for the two-point conversion in an attempt take the play on a direct snap play to Hathorn up the middle, but the Warrior defense held.
Noxapater never got the ball back as the Warriors started the ensuing drive at its own 5-yard line and managed to run 13 offensive plays to run out the clock.
The last 1:20 was allowed to run off the clock after the game had begun to get a little chippy and the Tigers had run out of timeouts and could no longer stop the clock deep in its own territory. The Warriors had begun to take a knee on every snap to end the game.
Sophomore quarterback K.D. Carter had another outstanding rushing game for the Tigers, picking up 192 yards on 18 carries, including a 1-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter to help Noxapater tie the game at 7-7.
Sanders led the Warriors in rushing with 88 yards on 10 carries, including a crucial 44-yarder to keep NW’s final drive of the night alive. Shia Moore rushed for 44 yards on nine carries and scored Warriors first touchdown of the night, scoring on a 6-yard run in the first quarter.
Donovan Turner had a strong night passing the ball, hitting on 13-of-21 passes for 106 yards, while Sanders had four catches for 33 yards and Tylan Glass and Young had three catches each.
