Game "kicks"
- Thread starter dogs79
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When I was in college, I had a class with a kid from somewhere down east. I can’t remember which school... Midway High School is my guess. He said he played in two different games in which a short punt was fair caught. The receiving team then opted for a “free kick”, and subsequently won the game in both instances.
I’d love to see one of those in person one day.
I know of two games in the past two seasons in which a free kick following a fair catch has been attempted...both were no good however. One game was at Western Alamance, the other was North Stanly at West Montgomery.
I saw the "Fair Catch" field goal in a game in which Mooresville was at Newton-Conover at the end of the first half. Mooresville was given the free kick field goal and was good. Everybody on the field and in the stands was standing around afterward scratching their heads and going "WTF? This had to be in early to mid 1970's.
Obviously, I’m biased, but my favorite was Thomasville against High Point Central game at Simeon, when my son kicked a field goal with no time left to win the game.
My least favorite was the infamous “take a knee” game with Thomasville at Salisbury. Thomasville was up and had first and goal at the one with a couple minutes left. In an effort to force Salisbury to take all three time outs so they wouldn’t have any on offense, the offensive coordinator called for the quarterback to kneel three straight times. The strategy appeared to be working, except the ‘Dogs couldn’t score on fourth and two. No problem. Except the Hornets threw a 98 yard td pass over the middle.
Thomasville came back to score again and retake the lead. On the ensuing kickoff, my son asked the same coordinator if he should kick the ball out of bounds since their return man had already taken one to the house. “Nah, kick it to him. He can’t do it twice”. Wrong. Ran it back to our twenty, scored and won the game. Cost Thomasville the conference championship.
The next day in the paper, the coordinator, when asked why he didn’t kick it out of bounds, said “You know high school kids. They don’t always do what you tell them.” Guess he never heard the Dean Smith quote, “I’ll take the losses, you guys take the wins”.
My least favorite was the infamous “take a knee” game with Thomasville at Salisbury. Thomasville was up and had first and goal at the one with a couple minutes left. In an effort to force Salisbury to take all three time outs so they wouldn’t have any on offense, the offensive coordinator called for the quarterback to kneel three straight times. The strategy appeared to be working, except the ‘Dogs couldn’t score on fourth and two. No problem. Except the Hornets threw a 98 yard td pass over the middle.
Thomasville came back to score again and retake the lead. On the ensuing kickoff, my son asked the same coordinator if he should kick the ball out of bounds since their return man had already taken one to the house. “Nah, kick it to him. He can’t do it twice”. Wrong. Ran it back to our twenty, scored and won the game. Cost Thomasville the conference championship.
The next day in the paper, the coordinator, when asked why he didn’t kick it out of bounds, said “You know high school kids. They don’t always do what you tell them.” Guess he never heard the Dean Smith quote, “I’ll take the losses, you guys take the wins”.
This also reminds me when I was coaching at North Rowan in the early 80's, we played a game at Salisbury. We had the lead with only a few seconds left and Salisbury had no timeouts. Salisbury had the ball on our 25 or 30 yard line when all of a sudden, a Salisbury player got "hurt" and was laying on the ground in agony. Problem was, nobody touched the guy. While their trainers were on the field, Salisbury ran on their field goal team and was ready when the player went off the field and as soon as the ref started the clock with about two seconds remaining, the ball was snapped and the field goal was good. Needless to say, we got rooked.
The classical South Iredell at Mooresville 2017. Mooresville up 14-13 with about a second left in the game. South had a girl kicker that was known for hitting 40 yards out easy. They were within about the 5 yard line. The defender for Mooresville just got enough fingers to fleck the ball to just miss the FG. Talking about a disappointing loss.
1967 WNCHSAA Semifinal: Lincolnton defeats Hickory @ Lenoir-Rhyne's College Field, with near, end of game field goal by L.Reinhardt. Before that, I could not recall the Wolves attempting a field goal.
2007 2A state quarter finals @ Moravian Falls, NC, Lincolnton kicker J.Gilleland kicks a field goal to defeat Wilkes Central.
With a few minutes left in the game, WC, who played the Wolves tough all night seemed to have the momentum, prior to this field goal. If it would have been missed I believe the Eagles would have had a good chance of winning, which would have costed Lincolnton a state title.
The ensuing kickoff was onside and recovered by the Wolves.
Postal Script: You know, if Wilkes Central would have won that game (due respect to the eagles, they were a good team and played hard), I believe East Lincoln would have beaten them the next week and played South Columbus for the state title, instead of us.
What a dismal thought that is. It has about the same affect on me as it would if the IRS arrested my mother for income tax evasion.
-Kickers, generally, are underappreciated and worth their weight in gold.
2007 2A state quarter finals @ Moravian Falls, NC, Lincolnton kicker J.Gilleland kicks a field goal to defeat Wilkes Central.
With a few minutes left in the game, WC, who played the Wolves tough all night seemed to have the momentum, prior to this field goal. If it would have been missed I believe the Eagles would have had a good chance of winning, which would have costed Lincolnton a state title.
The ensuing kickoff was onside and recovered by the Wolves.
Postal Script: You know, if Wilkes Central would have won that game (due respect to the eagles, they were a good team and played hard), I believe East Lincoln would have beaten them the next week and played South Columbus for the state title, instead of us.
What a dismal thought that is. It has about the same affect on me as it would if the IRS arrested my mother for income tax evasion.
-Kickers, generally, are underappreciated and worth their weight in gold.
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HAHA. That's priceless.. they beat us by an absolute fluke field goal in October of that year to win the conference so karma was a bitty there. We came back to tie it in the 4th after a bad first half.. then they hit a super long FG that bounced off the bottom cross bar and went in. Still is deflating to watch; it was like luck wanted us to lose that game. It repaid them in the Lincolnton game.
No way they woulda beat East Lincoln I agree.
Let's see:
I'll never forget we played South Stokes for our homecoming game in 2012.. that was the best team they had in 30 some years. We both were undefeated coming in so it was a big deal. We got the ball first and drove down the field easy and scored only for the TD to come back for some flag. Then we turned it over very stupidly and they drove to score and it was a tough quarter. We did everything we could do wrong and we needed a break. My hands were full of blood as I bit my fingernails until I bled.. I only do that in tense deals lol. We punted after a stop at our 20; we had an All State Punter that year and he really saved our butts as the punt landed on their one. One of the loudest and longest punts I've ever seen it went super high up. It seems like that broke the barrier for our bad luch; as a play or two later our D woke up and caused a safety and we took off after that.
We scored a TD and went into halftime.. came out in the 2nd half and we just pounded them all over the field, it was a complete 180. Never seen us really flip the coin like that since; maybe once or twice. That team was just that close and turned it on at the right time Even the CBS station admitted we outhit them, and that's rare coming from a news station. We ran the clock off and won; boy was the end of the game a nuke zone. South had 2 kids tantrum-ing on the field and I got cursed out by a fan.. it was extremely childish. Older I get the more I look back to that and it just makes me remember it's all a bloody game. Gotta do better for the kids than that.
We also won a conference title in 1998 by beating Wilkes Central with a 45 yard field goal.. it was some kid off the soccer team as we never had natural kickers then. We were down 20 some points at the half somehow which makes no sense considering we were way more talented; it shows what happens when you undertake certain teams. We woke up and pushed them around after half but we needed that 3. We got it.
I also seen our kicker who played at Wingate now have that long one against CSD a couple of years ago; that was savage. Crazy part was he coulda hit one even longer but we never really had the chance to use him.
I'll never forget we played South Stokes for our homecoming game in 2012.. that was the best team they had in 30 some years. We both were undefeated coming in so it was a big deal. We got the ball first and drove down the field easy and scored only for the TD to come back for some flag. Then we turned it over very stupidly and they drove to score and it was a tough quarter. We did everything we could do wrong and we needed a break. My hands were full of blood as I bit my fingernails until I bled.. I only do that in tense deals lol. We punted after a stop at our 20; we had an All State Punter that year and he really saved our butts as the punt landed on their one. One of the loudest and longest punts I've ever seen it went super high up. It seems like that broke the barrier for our bad luch; as a play or two later our D woke up and caused a safety and we took off after that.
We scored a TD and went into halftime.. came out in the 2nd half and we just pounded them all over the field, it was a complete 180. Never seen us really flip the coin like that since; maybe once or twice. That team was just that close and turned it on at the right time Even the CBS station admitted we outhit them, and that's rare coming from a news station. We ran the clock off and won; boy was the end of the game a nuke zone. South had 2 kids tantrum-ing on the field and I got cursed out by a fan.. it was extremely childish. Older I get the more I look back to that and it just makes me remember it's all a bloody game. Gotta do better for the kids than that.
We also won a conference title in 1998 by beating Wilkes Central with a 45 yard field goal.. it was some kid off the soccer team as we never had natural kickers then. We were down 20 some points at the half somehow which makes no sense considering we were way more talented; it shows what happens when you undertake certain teams. We woke up and pushed them around after half but we needed that 3. We got it.
I also seen our kicker who played at Wingate now have that long one against CSD a couple of years ago; that was savage. Crazy part was he coulda hit one even longer but we never really had the chance to use him.
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As a neutral fan.....I saw the 1987 4A playoff game between Greensboro Page and Greensboro Grimsley....game played at Grimsley big stadium.....10,000 plus people saw Chris Leone 0f Grimsley kick a 56 yard FG to beat Page 10-7......What was really special was the fact that Page had beaten Grimsley during the regular season 56-7.....Whirlies ended up 12-2 that year and Page finished 11-1..........................................
Back in 1987 we were playing West Caldwell in the semis tied ball game late, we had lost our all everything fullback/linebacker Cedric Surratt during the game, it was a hard hitting brutal ball game..Clint Gwaltney lined up for a 50 yard field goal and it was like it was in the air forever and sailed across the crossbar for the eventual game winner
Just the year before Colonel Hopper with not much time left kicked a (straight on) field goal to beat Havelock 9-6 in the championship game
We got beat in I believe it was 1995 by High Point Central when Snow Brenner kicked an on-side kick to seal the game for the Bison.... that one sucked... "You got beat by a GIRL" ha ha ha ha
Just the year before Colonel Hopper with not much time left kicked a (straight on) field goal to beat Havelock 9-6 in the championship game
We got beat in I believe it was 1995 by High Point Central when Snow Brenner kicked an on-side kick to seal the game for the Bison.... that one sucked... "You got beat by a GIRL" ha ha ha ha
Burlington Cummings, I forgot about them. In 2001 Cummings beat Lincolnton on a field goal in the semi-finals, but lost the next week to Clinton. Go Darkhorses.
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Kicked a onside kick to seal the game? After recovering the kick HP had to drive down the field and then Snow had to kick the game winning field goal.
We took it to them that year. Herbert “2-shot” Dixon was a beast for us. The next year controversy ensued with our decision to go for it on our on side of the 50 needing 1 yard lost 2....the rest is history.
*Just to be clear, right play call. Poor execution. Our player (not naming anyone) tried to be a hero and didn’t run the sneak as called but instead ran a sweep. Btw there was hole up the middle a truck could’ve fit through. Then said player, announced confidently in the locker room afterwards “well, there’s always basketball season” and bought got his A$$ beat.
People forget those Cummings teams during that time were nasty good.
I was at that game because Reidsville was playing Bandys in the 2AA game right after.....Clinton had the game won but let it slip away........Cummings was good enough to take the late gift....Cummings only loss that year was to Reidsville (conference game), 31-30....................
This doesnt exactly fit the question of the post but......
On September 2, 2000, at some point in the game, Cline Ingle kicked a state record 61 yard field goal against Shelby. However, the Lions went on to win a squeaker 48 to 3.......
On September 2, 2000, at some point in the game, Cline Ingle kicked a state record 61 yard field goal against Shelby. However, the Lions went on to win a squeaker 48 to 3.......
I was also at this game, Mister Bar Bee Que, and it was Kirk McGuinn who kicked the game winning field goal for Grimsley. I"m thinking the game winner was about a 20 yarder. Chris Leone, the Grimsley kicker who played for Georgia Tech in 1994-95, did set a NC field goal record in 1991 with a 57 yarder in a loss to Winston - Salem Reynolds. Hoping you and yours are well and keep that mask adjusted to fit over nose and mouth.
wow...guess I've seen too many football games over the years and get em all mixed up....but I definitely saw Grimsley's win over Page.....
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