By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
TULSA – Trailing by 18 points in the second quarter to a team Southwestern Covenant has not had much success against, the current meeting was starting to look bleak.
But, 24 minutes can be a long time on the football field.
Southwest Covenant overcame a 10-point halftime deficit to outscore Summit Christian 40-8 in the final 24 minutes and ran away with a 70-40 victory over the Eagles Friday night at Broken Arrow.
The Patriots stunned Summit by opening the second half with a deep onsides kick that SWCS recovered and scored, then came back with a second deep onsides, recovered again and scored to take the lead and scored the final 32 points of the game to pull off the win.
“We were down 26-8, so going into the half down by only 10 had us excited,” Patriot head coach John Jensen said. “We made a ton of first quarter mistakes, I mean if it could have gone wrong it did. We moved a couple of kids around and it gave us a big boost of energy. Andrew Arnould moved from outside linebacker to nose tackle and truly gave their offense fits. Nate Gerber moved from safety to outside linebacker and that gave us a lot more speed there also. Between the two it really sparked energy into the game for us.
“We found a couple of things that worked on offense and we ran them over and over and over again,” he said. “We ran our inside zone play probably 25 times. Zac (Beshears) and Zeke (Williams) had phenomenal football games, I was very happy with those guys.”
Trailing 32-22 starting the second half, the Patriots gambled on the kickoff with a deep onsides kick and recovered the ball.
The Patriots drove to the four-yard line with Zeke Williams scoring from four-yards out. The conversion run was good and SWCS trimmed the lead to 32-30.
With the one deep onside working, the Patriots tried it again, recovered the ball and Zac Beshears scored three plays later from 23-yards out to give the Patriots a 40-32 lead.
Summit Christian did come within two-points taking the next possession and scoring on a seven-yard run by Carson Banham. Banham passes to James Logan for the conversion to make it 40-38.
“We came out to start the second half with a pooch kick, got the ball and took it down and scored,” Jensen said. “We tried it again, we got the ball and took it down and used the inside run plays to score. I think we ran that play seven times in a row, the didn’t adjust and couldn’t stop it. So it was like why call something else and right out of the gate we scored 14 points and Summit thought that was something that wasn’t going to happen. We weren’t sure it was going to happen like that either.
“At halftime, the kids felt like we were fine and no one was panicking,” he said. “We felt we were in the game, especially after being down 26-8 and coming back to get within 10 points. It was a really good second half for us.”
The Patriots added two more touchdowns in the third quarter on a five-yard run by Gabe Ross and an eight-yard run by Williams to open a 54-40 lead.
The Patriots, who rolled up 437 yards on the ground used a 28-yard touchdown run by Beshears and a 13-yard scoring run from Williams in the fourth quarter to push the lead to 70-40.
Beshears had a career night rushing the ball, gaining 189 yards on 13 carries. Ross ran for 109 on 16 and Williams had 82 on 10 carries.
Summit jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the first quarter on a 34-yard run by Jacob Langbartels, who then caught a 34-yard scoring pass from Banham. Beshears scored on a five-yard run to make it 12-8, but Langebartels scored on a 20-yard run and Luke Herlacher scored on a five-yard pass from Banham to open the 26-8 lead.
Beshears had a 23-yard scoring run and Ross a 17 yard touchdown run to close to 26-22, but trailed 32-22 at the half after Peyton Murray scored on a 24-yard touchdown pass from Banham.
The two teams combined for a total of 800 yards on the night.
