Fort Hill edges Wadsworth, 36-35, on 2-point conversion

Oct. 15, 2023
by Alex Rychwalski

CUMBERLAND — As Fort Hill stood 92 yards from the end zone with 4:38 left, it scarcely had an ounce left in the tank — that was enough for one final magical drive.

After 28 unanswered points by Ohio powerhouse Wadsworth, Fort Hill found itself facing a 35-28 deficit — its first of the season — on its own eight-yard line.

Quarterback Deshaun Brown orchestrated an improbable touchdown drive. Jabril Daniels punched it in, and Fort Hill went for the two-point conversion and the lead.

There was talk in the huddle of running play-action on the conversion, but the players wanted the football in the hands of Daniels and running behind Carter Hess. The decision paid off, Daniels found the end zone and he sealed the victory with an interception seconds later.

Behind a 28-7 start, Brown’s arm, Daniel’s legs, Tristan Ross’ explosiveness and an offensive line that found one final gear when hope seemed lost, No. 1 Fort Hill downed Wadsworth, 36-35, in a Saturday afternoon thriller.

For the 15th straight time, Fort Hill left the field the winning football team.

“They showed that they’re winners,” Fort Hill head coach Zack Alkire said. “Their backs were up against the wall. I’m sure that there were lots of people in the stadium that thought the game was over, and it wasn’t over to those guys.”

The interstate matchup drew comparisons to Fort Hill’s contest with Melbourne Central Catholic when the school from Florida made the trip to Cumberland and produced a classic six years to the day. The Sentinels won that game 44-42 on a Danny King field goal.

While Wadsworth didn’t have the Division 1 athletes of Melbourne, it brought with it 73 varsity football players, 16 assistant coaches and two full units of 11 players for each side of the football.

The Grizzlies (7-2) weren’t just a large football team, they were good too. Wadsworth was ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press Division 1 poll for Ohio’s largest classification and had the 13th highest point average of Ohio’s 701 schools entering the contest.

And yet Fort Hill (7-0), the top-rated team in Maryland’s Class 1A, had Wadsworth on the ropes. The Grizzlies wore the Sentinels down in the trenches and turned the tides to set up that final fateful series.

Before the heroics of Brown, Ross and Daniels, Fort Hill called the number of its backup quarterback facing a 4th-and-6 on its own 12-yard line early in the series.

Gavin Carney received the ball on a reverse and sped 21 yards up the away sideline for a first down. There was a flag on the turf, but the officials picked it up and the play stood.

Brown then completed a 50-yard pass down the right side to Ross — who made three receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown and also returned a kick 93 yards for a score.

The Fort Hill signal caller doesn’t get his name called often with an offense than runs for more than 300 yards a game, but when his team needed him most, he delivered.

“I can’t lie, my head was down, but I knew my team needed me for that last drive,” said Brown, who completed 5 of 8 passes for 115 yards and a touchdown. “I had to pick myself up. My protection the last series, the way we were running the ball, everything just looked good.”

Fort Hill capped its eight-play, 92-yard drive with a three-yard Daniels score with 51 seconds remaining.

The Sentinels found something on tape indicating they would have success running out of the Maryland I — in which three backs stand linear behind the quarterback — and they used it throughout the afternoon, running for 274 yards on 45 carries.

Fort Hill hadn’t practiced the formation before this week.

Fort Hill also moved left tackle Brayden Sines over to right tackle and had Hess lined up at right guard on toss plays to the right, and, while the Sentinels flirted with throwing a pass, they used that same formula on the two-point conversion run by Daniels.

“They were trying to change it to a pass play, and I told the coaches, ‘No, give me the ball. I want to put the team on my back,’” said Daniels, who rushed for 177 yards and two touchdowns on 19 runs.

What made Fort Hill’s final series even more surprising was its inability to move the football previously after halftime. The Sentinels’ prior four series ended on downs twice and twice with punts.

Fort Hill, worn down by Wadsworth’s no-huddle and seemingly endless depth, wasn’t getting the same push up front as it had when it rushed for 207 yards on 25 carries before halftime.

However, when Fort Hill needed its blockers Hess, Sines, Camron Banks, Riley Williams, Logan Vanmeter and Bryson Metz to dig deep, they did.

“We went out there and said, ‘This is it. This is all we get. After this we either go home and sleep a winner or a loser,’” Hess said.

“I let them know that I don’t want to go home and be a loser. They all got it done.”

Fort Hill came out hot and took control with a 25-point second quarter, benefitting from a long kick return by Ross, a 48-yard pitch and catch from Brown to Ross and a 74-yard Daniels run that all resulted in touchdowns.

Sentinel place-kicker Cooper Silber also drilled field goals of 33 and 23 yards.

The result was total domination on the scoreboard, as Fort Hill waltzed into the locker room with a 28-7 lead.

Wadsworth’s high-powered offense couldn’t produce with the exception of a 58-yard touchdown pass from Will Stack to Gavin Madigan. Three of its four series before halftime ended with punts, as five penalties for 53 yards — three of which were personal fouls or unsportsmanlike calls — proved costly.

“Fort Hill just came out and kicked our butt in every phase of the game in the first half,” Wadsworth head coach Justin Todd said. “We got too caught up in the outside the whistle stuff. Coaches, players, and that’s the most disappointing thing to me.

“We were more concerned with winning the argument or who pushed who first, which is bullcrap. That’s not football, and we allowed it to affect our game.

“That’s why we lost the game, but that doesn’t take anything away from a great Fort Hill team. They deserved to win the game, and they kicked our butt. You can see why they’re champions.”

Wadsworth found its groove in the second half.

The Grizzlies opened the third quarter with a five-play, 80-yard drive that took up just 1:21 on the clock because they ran to the line after each play and snapped the ball quickly to keep Fort Hill on its back foot.

Madigan and Nathan Metzger had touchdown runs of seven and one yards, respectively, during the third quarter to trail 28-21 with 12 minutes to play.

Stack leveled the score with a three-yard TD run, and he gave Wadsworth the lead after a fourth-down stop when he found Drew Jones in the end zone for a 27-yard touchdown pass.

“The tempo,” Alkire said of what gave his defense trouble. “We thought we’d see more throwing the second half, we had gone to (a Cover 2), but they were just gashing us with the run. We got out of what we worked on all week long, but that was probably a mistake.”

Stack completed 9 of 16 passes for 182 yards and an interception, and Jones was his top target, catching four passes for 66 yards. Kyle Figuray topped 100 yards on the ground.

Wadsworth outgained Fort Hill, 401-389, and had a 17-16 edge on first downs.

The Sentinels controlled the time of possession 29:06 to 18:54.

Carson Bender was Fort Hill’s second-leading rusher with 65 yards on 14 carries, including a crucial third-down conversion during the final series.

Wadsworth still had one final chance after getting the ball back on its own 25 with 44.1 seconds to play. Yet, after a short completion to Madigan, Stack’s pass over the middle of the field was dropped by a receiver and intercepted by Daniels.

Up next, Fort Hill will take on its third unbeaten opponent in four games, as the Sentinels will welcome New Oxford (8-0), Pennsylvania, to Cumberland on Friday night.

Despite a furious comeback, Wadsworth came up short on the decisive plays, and the Grizzlies had to make the four-plus-hour bus ride back to Ohio with their second loss of the season.

“It was a good experience all the way up until now,” Todd said. “It’s going to be a somber ride home, but it’ll be something that we remember forever. I’m proud of how our kids fought back. I think we showed the team that we’ve been all year.

“We didn’t take the fight, and the fight was brought to us.”