Clovis West defense, untimely penalties dash Liberty's hopes
| Saturday, Nov 22 2008 03:03 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 02:06 PM
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CLOVIS — Because Liberty's season was about overcoming a poor start, it was only fitting the Patriots had two late chances to stun Clovis West on Friday at Lamonica Stadium in the Central Section Division I quarterfinals.
But this fairy tale is over, and the Pats didn't live happily ever after.
No. 2 seed Clovis West stymied two late Liberty drives inside the Golden Eagles' 25-yard line and held on for a 14-6 victory.
"When it comes down to it, they made one more play at the end," Liberty senior Chris Neal said. "... If there's time on the clock, we always believe we can get the job done. But that last second ticked off. The season's over."
After Liberty had cut the Clovis West lead to 7-6 with Colton Schmidt's second field goal in the third quarter, the Patriots drove down again midway through the fourth quarter and reached the Eagle 24 -- easily within the range of Schmidt, who had drilled a 40-yard field goal with room to spare in the first half.
But untimely penalties — first a delay of game and then a holding call that negated a first-down pass -- pushed Liberty (7-4) all the way back to the 41. The Pats punted.
"We had two killer penalties," Liberty coach Tony Mills said. "I felt the officials did an outstanding job, and we had a couple plays where we shot ourselves in the foot."
After its defense held, the Clovis West defense made a big play when a lineman poked the ball away from Liberty quarterback Dylan Slayton as he was trying to scramble. The Eagles recovered the fumble.
"Our defense, what can you say? Just unbelievable," Clovis West coach Gary Kinne said. "Travis Brown, Anthony Elliott, Nathan Felner. Our defensive front was really dominant."
Clovis West (8-3) then gained two first downs. With the clock inside of two minutes and Liberty with just one timeout, the game was essentially over. But the Eagles gave the Patriots new life, strangely enough, with Kendall Brock's 21-yard touchdown run. That made it 14-6 but left Liberty enough time to try for a touchdown and two-point conversion to tie the score.
"I said, 'Hey, we got a chance, boys. They let us right back in,'" Mills said.
The Patriots responded, with Slayton gaining chunks of yardage with a short passing game. They reached the Clovis West 23 with a 16-yard pass to Dillon Meadows and the 20 a few seconds later. But a spiked ball to stop the clock and another incomplete pass later, and it was fourth down with 15 seconds to go.
Clovis West dropped nine defenders into coverage, and, when Slayton was forced to throw into a crowd, Jordan Pirtle came away with a clinching interception.
"We had a shot," Mills said. "The play that we called, we had a window. We just didn't get the ball where we needed to. I think we would have had one, possibly two more plays. We just almost got it done."
Slayton finished 17-of-29 for 144 yards, mostly through the short passing game, after a first half in which Liberty gained just 30 yards -- and only 7 on the ground. Clovis West, meanwhile, took a 7-0 lead on a 54-yard touchdown run from Braden Seibert, who finished with 104 yards on 17 carries.
Liberty was able to move the ball more consistently in the second half with safe underneath routes.
"We had guys catching balls, the line played great, it was going," Slayton said. "I just threw it to the wrong place."
But it was a game dominated by defense, and in the end Clovis West's made enough big plays to survive with its back against the wall.
"They responded when they had to," Kinne said. "Our defense, when they backed inside the red zone, they start getting pretty tough."
Tough enough to dash Liberty's six-game winning streak and their comeback story after a 1-3 start.
"Not too many people gave us a shot, because we lost a lot of key players (from last year)," Mills said. "... There's a lot of special players on this team. It's a shame we had to play these guys in the first round."
