By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
With the final Big 8 West championship on the line, Seneca and Nevada provided a game for the ages on Friday night.
The visiting Indians scored three straight touchdowns in the second half after falling behind by double digits and then scored a game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left to earn a 40-36 win, giving Seneca an undefeated regular season and second straight Big 8 West title.
“This is phase one,” Seneca coach Cody Hilburn said. “It’s a special one for us. I don’t think Seneca has won back-to-back Big 8 West titles since 1995 and I’m not sure we’ve had an undefeated regular season since 1995 so it was cool for our kids but it’s not our ultimate goal. It’s the completion of phase one and now we earned a bye, which we need, and we take it to phase two and hope to keep playing better football.”
Seneca had an unbeaten regular season on the line in week nine last season against Nevada and suffered a 49-14 loss. The Indians entered Friday ranked second in Class 3 and allowing less than eight points per game on average, and they faced a one-loss Nevada team ranked seventh in Class 4 and scoring more than 40 points per game.
With just more than six minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Tigers were poised to play spoiler again, after Dezmon Robinson had scored on a 42-yard run and Grady Stewart tacked on the two-point try to make it a 36-34 game.
The Indians marched 68 yards in the final minutes, converted three times on third down and pulled ahead on an 8-yard touchdown pass from Gavyn Hoover to Hagen Ginger with 19 seconds remaining to give Seneca its four-point lead.
Nevada got as far as the 50-yard line before throwing incomplete on a deep pass to end the game.
“Credit to Nevada, that’s a really, really good football team,” Hilburn said. “Coach (Wes) Beachler does a tremendous job. Not a whole lot went right for us that first half. We turned the ball over a couple times, but we’ve got a resilient group of kids. They don’t hang their heads, they just believe they’re going to find a way to win and they did tonight.”
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Beachler was the first person to address Seneca’s post-game huddle on the field.
“I haven’t done that a whole lot but I have a lot of respect for coach Hilburn and the kind of program he’s built down there over the last three years,” Beachler said. “I just wanted to congratulate them on the Big 8 West championship. They earned it and I just wanted to tell them to carry the Big 8 West banner as far as they can in the playoffs.”
Nevada opened the scoring on a 75-yard touchdown run by Jack Cheaney on the third play of the game. Seneca’s Jackson Marrs countered with a 14-yard score and Roman Miller tacked on the two-point run to make it 8-7.
Seneca led 14-7 after a 1-yard score by Blake Rum, and Nevada tied it on a 36-yard score from Robinson with 2:29 left in the half.
Things went south for the Indians after that.
Nevada’s Brice Budd intercepted a pass at the 1-yard line with 33 seconds remaining in the half, and then Cheaney broke free for a 99-yard touchdown untouched to make it 21-14.
And then Seneca fumbled the kickoff to start the third quarter, with Jacob Murray recovering the ball at the 33. Three plays later Cheaney scored on a 30-yard run to make it 28-14.
Seneca answered with three straight touchdowns: Ethan Altic scored on a 6-yard reverse, Marrs scored on a 5-yard run and added the two-point conversion, and then Marrs scored on a 14-yard run that made it 34-28 with 8:29 left in the game.
The Indians stopped the Tigers on a fourth-and-6 at the Seneca 25 in the midst of that run, and also benefited from a fumble on a kick return recovered by Blake Skelton with the game tied at 28.
After falling behind 34-28, Nevada answered with a five-play scoring drive and took the lead on a 42-yard run from Robinson.
“I thought both teams played really well,” Beachler said. “Both offenses got a head of steam and were doing a lot of nice things. In a game like that there are so many little things that could have swung one way or the other. Some went our way and some didn’t. But a game like that, it’s a missed block here, a missed tackle there. It was just a heck of a high school football game. Just two really good teams that played a heck of a game. Hats off to Seneca, they did enough in the end on that last drive. They had a long ways to go and they got it done.”
Seneca (9-0) enters postseason play as the top seed in Class 3 District 1, and Nevada (7-2) moves forward as the top seed in Class 4 District 7. Both teams will get a bye next week.
