Gallery by Heather Belcher
Coal City – Friday’s frigid 28-degree weather didn’t keep the Independence faithful away at kickoff.
The temperature coupled with the Patriots’ poor play may have sent a few of them towards the exit early but those that stayed cashed the hottest ticket in town.
Struggling to get out of its own way and trailing 8-6, the Independence offense turned up the heat at the right time as quarterback Logan Phalin hooked up with Judah Price for a 66-yard touchdown with 8:34 left, helping the hosts to a 22-8 quarterfinal win over No. 10 Roane County Friday night in Coal City.
With the win Independence advances to the Class AA semifinal for the second time in program history (1986) and will host No. 14 Bluefield next week.
After Phalin failed to connect with his receivers throughout the first three quarters – passes to Price and Trey Bowers earlier in the evening were either dropped or misplayed – the senior’s scoring strike finally flipped the momentum and gave the Patriots the explosive play they were hunting for all evening.
“Coach had trust in me and he kept calling my number,” Phalin said. “That was an excellent play call and we just executed really well. When I threw a screen pass earlier we saw that the corners were biting up so I pump faked that screen pass and Judah leaked out and was wide open.”
Well then. Roane is stopped on 4th and the passing attack finally clicks. Phalin to Price for a 66-yard score. Conversion good. Indy up 14-8 with 8:34 left pic.twitter.com/hnVMThF1At
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) November 20, 2021
Phalin’s pass to Price broke open the floodgates as Cyrus Goodson intercepted Raiders QB Shadraq Greathouse on the following drive, helping the hosts set up shop at their own 44-yard line. From there his older brother did the rest.
Having accumulated just 57 yards on 13 carries to that point, all-state running back Atticus Goodson raced 56 yards down the right side on the next play, picking up a block from the younger Goodson that sealed a scoring run. A successful conversion run by Atticus accounted for the game’s final points with 6:30 left.
Atticus Goodson had 57 yards before this carry. He picked up 56 and a score. Great block by his little brother Cyrus. Tacks on the conversion and Indy leads 22-8 with 6:30 left pic.twitter.com/H6DPuID9hv
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) November 20, 2021
Getting to that point seemed unlikely as the Patriots appeared asleep at the wheel most of the night.
Five penalties for 34 yards put them behind the sticks and blitzes up the middle blew up the potent Indy run game. Meanwhile the visiting Raiders played within themselves, grinding out long, time-consuming drives.
It paid off early as their second drive of the evening consumed eight plays, spanning 56 yards and ending in a one-yard scoring plunge by Skylar Delk. The Patriots answered three drives and nine minutes later when a 40-yard punt return by Price set the hosts up at the Roane 15.
In an effort to get the ball in Price’s hands once more, Indy head coach John H. Lilly called a reverse for the junior, but a blitz forced Phalin to abort post-snap and call his own number. It worked out well as he eluded tacklers and glided down the left sideline for a 15-yard score.
“Honestly it wasn’t even to me,” Phalin said. “It was supposed to be a reverse to Judah. The play got messed up. They were about to hit Judah so I pulled it away from him and honestly I don’t even remember what happened. I was just trying to win at all costs.”
“It was a busted play,” Lilly said. “They blitzed it and blew it up and (Phalin) made a smart play and kept it and ran it and they just kept flowing with the ball. He made a heckuva play. That was all him.”
A 40-yard punt return by Judah Price sets up this 15-yard TD run by Logan Phalin. Conversion fails with 2:30 left in the half. It’s 8-6 Roane#wvprepfb pic.twitter.com/q1bMYvVW0V
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) November 20, 2021
An interception courtesy of Indy’s Trey Bowers, his third of the postseason, set the hosts up inside the Roane 30 with five seconds left but a pass to Cyrus Goodson was ruled incomplete with the junior stepping out of the back of the end zone.
While it appeared that was the wakeup call the hosts needed, they were still mostly lifeless in the third quarter.
The Raiders opened the half by marching down to the Indy 1-yard line but a false start followed by a holding call backed them up to the 16. A strip sack and recovery by the Patriots on third-and-goal from the 16 provided a momentum swing and kept the Raiders out of the end zone.
“Well when you play a team as good as Independence they’ve got a really good front and really good linebackers and their scheme is just bring ’em.” Roane head coach Paul Burdette said. “And your guys are just working their butts off to keep the line of scrimmage where it needs to be and those guys get around them and you get a couple of holds. It’s not ideal but it’s the way it worked out.”
The Patriot offense again failed to capitalize, running its only five plays of the quarter before punting.
The errors continued as a roughing the kicker penalty on a Roane County punt from its own end zone provided a fresh set of downs and a 15-yard run on a fourth-and-8 later in the drive threatened to keep the Patriots off the field. But a fourth-down stop on the Indy 33 ended the drive. On the next play Phalin hooked up with Price and flipped the game.
“We came in at halftime and just told them we shot ourselves in the foot about six straight times,” Lilly said. “That killed us. They’re the best team we played so far and they had a great defensive gameplan against us. They did some stuff, I’m not going to tell you what they did because I don’t want anybody else to know it, but he did a great job defensing us. He picked up something that we knew was a little chink in our armor and nobody caught it all year but they caught it. But they did a great job. I tip my hat off to them. They played good enough to win.
“When you’ve got big playmakers that can make big plays, it doesn’t put as much pressure on you because you know you can break one at any time and I thought Logan stepped to the plate and made a heckuva pass. Judah caught a pass in the second quarter, we just couldn’t get the ball back in the third. But as soon as we got the ball back in the fourth we went right back to it and they delivered and the rest of the game we rode the horse (Goodson) and he delivered.”
Staying within striking distance until the offense found its groove was largely a credit to the play of the Patriots’ defense which won the turnover battle 4-0 while holding the Raiders to their second-lowest scoring output of the season.
“Our defensive staff did a good job,” Lilly said. “Both coaches really called timeouts and made great adjustments. As soon they’d make an adjustment we’d make an adjustment, we’d make an adjustment and they’d make one. It was a great battle and I tip my hat off to them. But I’ll tell you what – I love our kids. They played hard tonight. A lot of people said we never faced any adversity all year and we told therm ‘if you’re a championship-level team in the playoffs, you’ve got to step up in crunch time’ and they did.”
Up Next
Next week the Patriots will host Bluefield with a spot in the Class AA championship on the line. For the Beavers its their fifth consecutive semifinal appearance, but there are more storylines. The two teams scrimmaged in Coal City before the season and the bloodlines run deep. Lilly, a 1981 graduate of Bluefield, served on Bluefield coach Fred Simon’s staff in 1987. Kevin Grogg, the current Independence offensive line coach, was the head coach of the 1999 Wyoming East team that defeated Simon’s Beavers in the Class AA title game that season.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on twitter @tjack94
