St. James’ historic season comes to an end at Midland Valley
One long heave simply took the air out of the St. James football team.
After the Sharks closed to within a touchdown just before the half, Midland Valley successfully converted a Hail Mary with one second left to take a two-touchdown lead into halftime en route to a 56-21 win in the second round of the Class AAA playoffs.
“That was a tough one to swallow,” St. James coach Robby Brown said.
After trading scores with the Sharks early, the Mustangs scored a pair of touchdowns to build a 21-7 lead. Then, St. James scored with about two minutes left before halftime to draw within a touchdown, but Midland Valley got a strong kickoff return that led to a drive ending in the Hail Mary from about 30 yards out.
“They made big plays and we didn’t get stops in critical situations,” Brown said.
The Mustangs extended the lead to 35-14 in their first possession of the second half. The Sharks then scored to close the lead to 14 once again, but it was all Midland Valley after that.
“They’re a good football team. They have two really good athletes in their quarterback and running back,” Brown said of quarterback Daniel Carr and running back Dre’Kwon Carr. “They’re kind of similar to Myrtle Beach. This quarterback is like … he’s really good. Hats off to them. They have two great athletes in that backfield. That (quarterback) can scramble around and make big plays. We’d have a third-and-long and he’d scramble and either throw it or run it for a first down.”
Zach Werba threw three touchdown passes, one each to Jamarius Faulkner, Trey Myers and Jackson Hurston. However, the offense sputtered in the second half.
“We didn’t have as much success on offense as we had been having,” Brown said.
The loss put an end to a historic season for the Sharks (7-5), who had their first-ever winning record and won a playoff game for the first time.
“They don’t have anything to be ashamed of,” Brown said of his players. “When we came into this program two years ago, we had a saying that we wanted to get the donkey out of the well. We definitely got it out of the well here at St. James. People know you can win here and our kids believe we can win here. We’ve just got to keep building. They got a lot of experience this year – having a winning season and getting to the second round of the playoffs.
“We’ve got a great group of kids and a great group of seniors. (This year) helped the younger guys see that you can win.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 11:55 PM with the headline "St. James’ historic season comes to an end at Midland Valley."