Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

Hanford rallies to beat Eastmont

By Bruce Blizard, Special to the Herald

RICHLAND -- By the time Hanford had secured a badly needed 21-14 Columbia Basin Big Nine Cascade Division win over Eastmont on Friday night at Fran Rish Stadium, fans had witnessed a game that appeared to have been decided three times.

First, Eastmont rallied from a two-touchdown deficit in the final quarter to take a 14-13 lead when Lucas McGill scored on a 3-yard run with just 2:01 remaining in regulation.

Game over. Right?

Not so fast. Hanford quarterback Brenton Griffin then engineered a masterful 67-yard, 10-play drive that ended when he hit Lamar Bowser with a 7-yard TD pass that put the Falcons back on top with only 11.9 seconds left.

Game over. Right?

Not so fast. After a short Hanford kickoff, the Wildcats had one chance left with the ball on their own 43 and just 8.9 seconds to work with.

And Eastmont very nearly pulled off the miracle with an almost perfect fleaflicker that began with Ryan Pierce streaking up the right sideline and that didn't end until Hanford's Joe Clements knocked Pierce out of bounds at the Falcons 7 as time expired.

The win ended a four-game losing streak for the Falcons.

"Wasn't that exciting?" Hanford coach Rob Oram said. "Joe stepped up and made a play. He's a high character kid and just decided he wasn't going to lose on senior night."

Hanford 21, Eastmont 14

Eastmont 0 0 0 14 -- 14

Hanford 6 7 0 8 -- 21

SCORING PLAYS

H--Cameron Wagar 11 run (kick failed)

H--Wagar 19 run (Pete Hanson kick)

E--Josh Campos 22 run (Daniel Romero kick)

E--Sam Gwinn 2 run (Romero kick)

H--Lamar Bowser 6 pass from Brenton Griffin (Wagar run)

STATISTICS

RUSHING--E, Campos 16-113, McGill 12-(minus-23), Michael Perez 5-41, Gwinn 4-24. H, Wagar 16-158, Griffin 11-31, Shawn VanDeMark 3-19, Matt McClendon 1-5.

PASSING--E, McGill 16-23-2-120. H, Griffin 13-24-0-154.

RECEIVING--E, Darren Spaeth 7-41, Perez 3-26, Sam Deich 2-19, John Wehrer 3-23. H, Dylan Dikes 7-80, Wagar 1-10, Bowser 1-6, VanDeMark 3-43, Kurt Rueter 1-15.

FIRST DOWNS--E 18, H 20. FUMBLES-LOST--E 3-1, H 2-1. PENALTIES-YARDS--7-75, H 8-100.