That cliché proved itself true with the Kardinals’ 21-16 playoff win against the Homer Mariners. And the Mariners played their hearts out Saturday afternoon at Ed Hollier Field in Kenai — but also lost their heads. With costly penalties late in the game, the Mariners lost an apparently sealed up 16-14 lead with under a minute to play. All they needed was to receive a kickoff and run out the clock and the time-outs that Kenai had remaining. But some lucky bounces for Kenai and veteran clock management by Kards’ QB Justin Yragui changed the entire scenario.
As expected, a closely fought defensive battle emerged throughout a mostly scoreless first half until the Mariners’ Jake Tappan stole a Yragui pass and scampered untouched for about 45 yards into the end zone. A critical 2-pt conversion gave Homer an 8-0 halftime advantage.
The Kardinals ate up almost the entire 3rd quarter with a clock-control running game that mixed Bobby Hayes and William Wilson, who was hardly used in the 1st half. Starting from their own 15, the Kards took the ball in from about 3 yards on a wide, untouched run by Bobby Hayes. The 2-pt conversion was good and the game was knotted 8-8 at the end of the quarter.
On the first play of the 4th quarter the Mariners’ Chris Martishev took an end-around sweep 34 yards from the short side of the hash marks, broke a tackle and entered paydirt. The Mariners were again successful with the conversion, and led 16-8.
After an exchange of possessions the Kards were forced to punt from their own 25. That is when the Kardinal punter Cole Langham unleashed a 63 yard bomb of a punt, a beautiful vertical spiral that proceeded to bounce Kenai’s way, all the way to Homer’s 12. With 6 minutes to go, the ball in their possession and an entire field to work with, Homer was in the driver’s seat. But with 4th and 1 on their 39, the Mariner’s troubles began with a false start that put them back 5 yards and forced them to punt. The punt was shanked and ruled out of bounds after only 10 yards at the Homer 42. With 2:55 remaining, Kenai had great field position to drive for the tie. Coming up short of the first down on a 3rd and 5 run, the Kards were awarded an additional 15 when Homer was hit with another personal foul for head contact. Then a key pass to Langham, who had a late-afternoon sun to contend with, brought the ball to the 10. With 1:04 remaining, Kenai called time out, then watched as Yragui took a roll-out to his right and dove into the endzone, making it 16-14 — but with the critical 2-pt conversion still necessary.
It failed, inches short, and the jubilant Homer squad had a 16-14 lead with less than a minute remaining and the kickoff coming to them.
Kenai has three times this season worked “pop-up” kickoffs to retain possession, but this time an on-side squibber kick was called for. It went straight to Homer’s Wyatt Count, who had the ball hit his legs and was recovered by the Kardinals on their own 48.
But again, Homer had the game in hand when a high snap eluded Yragui from the shotgun formation. The ball bounced once on the ground and Yragui made the recovery, but it put Kenai on their own 38 with just 46 ticks left on Father Time.
And again, Yragui was chased on a roll-out to the sidelines with absolutely no hope when Count grabbed his back collar and jerked him to the ground with a classic “horse-collar” tackle. The 15-yard penalty put the ball on the Homer 46 with now 37 seconds remaining. A 14-yd pass to Sawyer Vann brought it out of bounds to the 34 with :30 left. A swing pass to the long side of the field brought it inside the 20, now putting Kenai into field goal range with :21.8 left on the clock. Yragui then threw an 18-yard up-the-middle slant to Bobby Hayes, and with a single point-after, Kenai’s miraculous comeback was complete.
The Kardinals will play Barrow, 22-18 victors over Houston, next Saturday in Anchorage for the ASAA Division III championship.
