By T. Scott Boatright
On a historic night, the Lincoln Preparatory School football played an ugly game that still had a chance to close with a beautiful ending for the Panthers, who were playing for the first time ever on the new field on the grounds of their new school building.
But after putting themselves in position to possibly pull off a come-from-behind victory, four ugly plays in the final minute ended Lincoln Prep’s dreams of a fantastic finish on Panther Field as Madison escaped with a 14-8 win in a contest that went down to the final play.
Trailing by six, Lincoln Prep got one last chance to go for the win as the Panthers took their final possession at their own 46-yard line with 1:44 remaining.
After a first down incompletion followed by a delay of game penalty, Lincoln Prep quarterback Jordan Brown connected with Cenario Wilson on a pair of passes before scampeLring for eight yards to give the Panthers a first down at the Madison 31-yard line with under a minute remaining.
Brown then tried to hit Wilson on another throw. The pass went incomplete, but a pass interference call against the Jaguars set the Panthers up with a first down at the Madison 16-yard line.
But on first down, Brown dropped a shotgun snap that moved the Panthers back nine yards, forcing them to call a timeout.
Then, after an incomplete pass on second down, Brown scrambled to his right before taking a big hit for no gain as he reached the sideline to stop the clock with eight seconds.
But that hit knocked Brown out of the game for the final play. And on that final play, backup quarterback Michael Lewis scrambled right, holding on to the ball until he neared the sideline.
Lewis finally launched the ball as he was hit and knocked out of bounds, but the ball fluttered to the ground like a dying duck that had been shot out of midair as the Jaguars went into celebration mode.
“We made too many mistakes,” Hall said. “We gave the game away at different segments of the game. We’re talking about bad punts, we’re talking about fumbling the ball away on a kick return, we’re talking about the quarterback not throwing the ball on time and not executing plays. That was on us. That was not the other team doing that.”
It seemed yellow was the color of the night as penalties plagued both teams, with double digit illegal procedure calls alone against both the Panthers and Jaguars along with numerous other fouls called that pushed the game close to four hours before being completed.
“It made no sense,” Hall said. “It came from a lack of concentration on both sides. We were trying to hand our wide receiver the ball and one of our guys jumped offsides when he tried to go in motion. It’s unheard of. I’ve never seen that before in my life, but I promise you I’m going to fix it.”
The game was scoreless until the 8:02 mark of the second quarter when Brown was intercepted by Madison safety Delvin Williams, who raced the ball back 15 yards back for the score.
Madison’s Tyler added a two-point conversion to put the Jaguars up 8-0.
But Lincoln Prep tied things up by halftime as Jaylin Huntley broke loose down the left sideline on a 65-yard scoring scamper followed by a two-point conversion pass from Brown to Trey Spann with 2:20 remaining in the second quarter to knot things up at 8-8.
Madison turned in the game’s final score with 19 seconds remaining in the third quarter as Lewis looked to be stopped for no gain before spinning away from the attempted tackle and danced his way 10 yards to paydirt.
But the Jaguars’ two-point conversion run was stopped by a big hit from the Panthers’ Demarian Robinson to hold the Madison lead at 14-8.
Hall said it was defensive plays like that one that the Panthers have to build on as they move toward game two.
“The defense did everything we asked them to do,” Hall said. “We made some mistakes by jumping offsides. My coaches have to get better, I’ve got to get better. We’re going to right this ship. It’s just something we’re going to have to make happen.”
Panthers basketballer Amarje Young was a big part of Lincoln Prep’s defensive effort with double digit tackles on the night.
“He wasn’t out the first week of (preseason) workouts, but when he came out he dedicated himself and became a crucial part of our defense,” Hall said of Young. “He’s doing a great job for us. He still has a lot to learn but he can fly around and do those types of things, and you can live with the mistakes with him trying like that.”
After the game, Hall wasn’t making any excuses or accepting any from his team.
“It’s about dedication — I don’t think my team is dedicated enough,” Hall said. “If you’re lackadaisical, that’s because of you. But you can’t continue to keep using that as an excuse. Somewhere along the line, youth has to grow up. And after this game, I’m hoping they grew up because I’m not going to stop, my coaches aren’t going to stop and we’re going to coach until the end.
Lincoln Prep will play again at home next Friday against Plain Dealing, and Hall made it clear he expects a better effort in that contest.
“This has got to be a learning experience,” Hall said of the Panthers’ opening game loss. “It’s got to be a learning experience for me, my coaches and for my team. I just think that learning from this, learning from the mistakes we made, has to happen. We let our defense get tired, and then they started making mistakes. I promise you that’s my fault. We will not be tired again this year, I promise you that.”
