By Chapin Jewell News & Tribune Correspondent
MOOREFIELD, W.Va. (WV News) – In the most improbable of endings, Keyser snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The heroes? Senior Jake Anderson and freshman Dominik Crawford. Anderson and Crawford made the defensive and offensive plays of the year for the Golden Tornado, turning the tide with time running out in Keyser’s 42-35 win at Moorefield.
The game was tied 35-35. Moorefield was driving, and with just 1:07 left in the contest, it sure looked as if they were about to score the go-ahead and winning touchdown of the game. They had made it all the way down to the Keyser one-yard line and were happy to be draining the clock. With all their chips down, Anderson, who would finish the game with 14 unassisted tackles and six assisted ones, came up with a huge fumble recovery at the one to give Keyser new life.
“From scouting them, we realized that they had won three or four plays out of that formation. But, their predominant play was the one that we were betting on, and if they had ran one of the other ones, we might have been out of luck. We put all our eggs in that basket, we blew the hole up, they fumbled the ball, and Jake Anderson came up with it,” Keyser coach Derek Stephen stated.
According to Stephen, “Jake’s our senior, and he’s been our go-to guy, our engine that just keeps going. He leads by example, he’s out there doing all the things he’s supposed to do, and he came up with the ball. If there was a chance anyone was going to get it, he was going to get it.”
While there was relief that they had halted the Moorefield scoring drive, Keyser had a new problem, they had the ball at their own one-yard line, literally in the shadow of the goalpost. One wrong move, a blown blocking assignment or bobbled snap, and the Golden Tornado would be in trouble, perhaps fatally so.
For two consecutive plays, Keyser did the safe thing, running the sneak call, inching it out to the six-yard line. Now, facing a third and five, Keyser made the third safe call in row, just hoping to get enough yards, five to be exact, to get a first down.
Dominick Crawford had other plans.
“We had ran that play earlier in the game, there was a big hole, we got four or five yards. We were thinking, let’s run it again, this is a chance to get a first down. Not in a million years did we think we were going to bust that big one,” Stephen noted.
That big one? Oh, it was the big one, the biggest to be exact.
Crawford moved left as he received the handoff, then immediately cut back to the middle and shot through the open hole. He went straight up field then cut sharply towards the left sideline where the foot race began.
As fast as anyone could possibly race 94 yards down a football field while shoving some people out of the way and dodging the others, Crawford did so, ultimately reaching the endzone at the other end of the field with 52 seconds remaining in the game. With Tommy Nash’s extra point kick, Keyser was on top, and it would be for good, 42-35.
“We were on the six-yard line, I just wanted to get some yards, do what I could do,” Crawford stated. “My line, they got me some great blocks, some great, great blocks, and I just took it all the way down the sideline. Someone almost got me, but I stiff-armed him and took it all the way.”
According to Crawford, “When I got the ball, I just wanted to get the first down, but I saw the lane, so I took it.”
Crawford not only scored the winning score in dramatic, electric fashion, he also led the Keyser rushing attack with 12 carries for 160 yards, and caught a 27-yard touchdown pass, along with an onsides kick recovery.
“When Dom scored, it was an amazing feeling, I probably just ran 60 yards down the sideline with him. That’s the first time I’ve sprinted in a long time,” Stephen stated. “It was just a great moment, and exemplified what we’ve been preaching to the kids this week. Don’t ever give up, keep playing, play with attitude and emotion, all that stuff, and they did a great job with it.”
Last week’s loss to Allegany dipped the Golden Tornado to below .500. They needed this win, not just for their records sake, but intrinsically, they needed it.
“Like I just told the kids, we begged and pleaded them just to come out and play the way we knew they were capable of playing We talked about coming out and playing with Keyser Pride, and not quitting, and all that stuff,” Stephen explained.
According to Stephen, “You know, the year hasn’t gone the way we thought it would. But what they accomplished tonight was exemplified in that goal line stand. We kept saying if we kept hitting them and outhustling them, that good things were going to happen. We popped the ball loose, a senior recovered it, then we get a big 90-some run from a freshman. It was spectacular.”
The game, in every way, can best be described as a back-and-forth affair. In general terms, neither team really had much in the way of defense, but the offenses were productive, doing enough to combine for 77 points on the night.
Moorefield ran off six minutes of clock on their opening possession, and punctuated it with a one-yard touchdown plunge by Oliver Crites that, with the extra point, put the Yellow Jackets up, 7-0.
Keyser then ran off over five minutes of clock on their opening possession, and punctuated it with a 17-yard touchdown run up the middle by Addison Brafford that, with Tommy Nash’s extra point kick, tied the game, 7-7, with 1:07 remaining in the opening frame.
At the 8:46 mark of the second quarter, Moorefield’s Riley Pillus took it into the endzone off the right side from three yards out, but Keyser’s Grayson Lambka blocked the extra point, bringing the Yellow Jackets’ lead over the Golden Tornado to 13-7.
Then, just a little over four minutes later at the 4:14 mark of the second quarter, Moorefield scored again when Crites took it in from 15-yards away, straight up the middle. The Yellow Jackets went for two and were successful, extending their lead over Keyser to 21-7.
Down now by two touchdowns, Keyser needed a break, and they got one, a big one, when Grayson Lambka returned the ensuing kickoff for an 87-yard touchdown. Nash’s extra point cut the Moorefield lead to one score, 21-14.
Then, on the ensuing kickoff, Dominik Crawford would recover the ball, giving possession right back to the Golden Tornado.
Fast forward to the 1:18 mark of the second quarter, Keyser’s Mikey Mongold would take a pitch off the right side and catapult into the endzone from 14 yards out, and with Nash’s kick after, Keyser tied Moorefield, 21-21.
The two teams would go into the locker rooms all tied up at 21.
After the break, at the 7:32 mark of the third frame, Moorefield’s Crites would score his third touchdown of the game, this one from five yards out off the left side. The kick put the Yellow Jackets on top, 28-21.
Almost exactly two minutes later (5:36) Keyser had a response, a 27-yard touchdown pass from Brafford to Crawford down the right side that, with Nash’s kick after, tied the game, 28-28.
But Moorefield would then score with 18 seconds remaining in the third stanza when Diego Taylor took it in from 25-yards away down the right sideline, and with the extra point kick, the Yellow Jackets would take a 35-28 lead into the fourth quarter.
Three minutes into the fourth quarter (9:00), Cole Holland’s five-yard touchdown run off left tackle for Keyser, along with Nash’s extra point, would tie the game yet again, 35-35.
From that point, we know how the story ends, with Anderson’s fumble recovery at the one-yard line with 1:07 remaining, and Crawford’s 94-yrd touchdown run with 52 seconds to go to win the game, 42-35, for the Golden Tornado.
Like much of the season thus far, the game very much represented a youth movement for Keyser. Of the six Golden Tornado touchdowns, one was scored by a junior, and the remaining five by underclassmen, four of those coming from freshmen.
“Our backfield in the second half was three freshmen and a sophomore. It just shows how much our young guys, and our team as a whole, has gotten better as the year has went on. Earlier in the year, when we got down, we kind of tucked our tail a little bit. We got shellacked last week, and we could have done that this week, but they didn’t.” Stephen detailed.
“According to Stephen, “We’ve been preaching Keyser Pride, play for the name on the front, and that’s what they did.”
With the loss, Moorefield slips to 3-5 on the season in advance of a Friday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. road trip to Pendleton Co.
