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Hays Rebels footballPosted November 10, 2007, 7:40 p.m.
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Hays Highway Editor
BUDA – The season ended so suddenly, with a smash through the line and a ten-yard dash, then screams on the far side and sighs on the near, then silence, then a flip of the gut, then tears.
Several minutes after it ended, Hays Rebels players finally walked off the field at Bob Shelton Stadium, consoled by brothers and coaches, the studs of their shoes clacking concrete on the walk to their locker room in a cadence of sadness and darkness and finality, the deliberate rhythm of heartbroken doom.
It's over when the seniors don't want to leave the field, when they know it ended too soon, when these kids with their vivacity are red-eyed with pain, when they just felt a gate close behind them, when they'll never again run through that field where their steps were so loud and their shoes made no sound.
"Hard to believe," said Hays football coach Bob Shelton, and it was. A football season of magic and possibility two weeks ago, lost in a fog of dashed hopes and missed tackles, ended where it began Friday night, in the stadium named after Bob Shelton, the stadium where he stood with his cap off while the high school band played the alma mater one last time.
The Rebels went down Friday night with a fighting chance, and they fought for that chance, but chances wanted no part of them. They needed a six-point win against Cibolo Steele Friday night, and instead took a six-point loss, 35-29, in double overtime.
They played this season like 53 angels on the tip of a pin with no breathing room, no margin for error and, quite often, no margin of any kind. The chips were stacked against this team from the start and they almost stumped the house. Almost.
The Rebels came to this season with only two returning starters on offense and two on defense, but, as injuries played out, they didn't even have that. The schedule promised to be unforgiving, and it kept that promise. The draw lined the Rebels up with their five toughest and most important games to be played in the final five weeks of the season, including road games at New Braunfels, Schertz Clemens and New Braunfels Canyon.
"It was just a real tough, hard deal," Shelton said.
Those five weeks turned into five games of razor-close intensity, almost impossible to maintain, yet the Rebels almost pulled it off. But for an extra touchdown or tackle against New Braunfels, Canyon or Steele, the Rebels could be playing next week. But for one less touchdown or tackle against Del Valle or Clemens, they could have been finished last week.
Instead, the end came this week, after the Rebels battled back to tie Steele, first at 21-21 with an 11-play, 89-yard drive taking 1:20 and ending on a ten-yard touchdown run by Clayton Rogers with 1:38 remaining, then with a touchdown and two-point conversion in the first overtime to match Steele's performance in its turn.
But the Rebels came up short on fourth-and-one at their own 16 in the second overtime, and Steele needed only a field goal to finish them off. On second-and-goal from the ten, Steele running back Duane Dawkins ran straight through for a touchdown, and the Rebels, in that instant, were no more.
The run by Dawkins echoed so many runs against the Rebels in the last two weeks, when the opposition seemed always a hand off away from rushing to a long touchdown. In their last two games, the Rebels allowed four touchdown runs of 30 yards or more.
Of 86 rushing plays against Hays in the last two games against Canyon and Steele, 19 went for ten or more yards, 22 percent. Two opponents demanding almost no incentive to guard against the pass still averaged 7.2 yards per carry between them. In those two games, Hays put opponents into third-and-seven or longer 11 times, but only closed out that set of downs three times.
In retrospect, one might say the Rebels seeded their demise in their first moment of high ecstasy, for safety Justin Ortuno blew out his knee in overtime four weeks ago against Del Valle, never to return. The Rebels won that game, but lost their best defensive playmaker.
The Rebels were just bringing back free safety Michael Kauffmann, who missed most of the first six weeks with a foot fracture. Kauffmann and Ortuno, the only two returning starters, ended up on the field together for only a few plays this year against Lehman. Without their safeties in tandem, the Rebels couldn't keep the ball in the park.
Offensively, the Rebels couldn't hit the ball out of the park in the first half Friday night. Though they led at halftime, 6-0, the exact margin of victory they would need to enter the playoffs, they also endured a nagging sense that they left as many as 11 points on the field.
Starting at their own ten off the opening kickoff, the Rebels drove to Steele's 22 with a first down in ten plays. But the chance to score an early touchdown stalled with two short runs and two incomplete passes. Steele took the ball on downs and advanced to the Hays 35 before Kauffmann popped the ball loose from running back Keith Brown and defensive tackle Adam Marez recovered for the Rebels.
Hays took over at the Steele 33 and finished the job this time in 15 plays, aided by a chop-blocking penalty during a punt that enabled the Rebels to keep the ball. On third-and-nine from the Steele 19, Rogers found Paul Breyfogle for 13 yards to the six. Two plays later, Nikki DeSantiago ran three yards for a touchdown. But Alex Perez missed the conversion, so the Rebels led, 6-0.
The Rebels took one more possession in the first half, advancing from their own 44 with 1:12 left and moving briskly to the Steele 11. But Perez missed a 31-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in the half.
"I thought really the story of the game was our missed opportunities in the first half," Shelton said. "We should have been ahead a lot more than we were. I thought we played really good defense in the first half, but we should have had more points."
Indeed, the Rebels played inspired defense in the first half, allowing only 37 yards on 17 Steele plays. But that tide turned quickly.
On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, Dawkins turned the corner on the right and ran 65 yards for a touchdown. The PAT suddenly gave Steele a 7-6 lead.
On Hays' second snap of its ensuing possession, DeSantiago fumbled at the end of a ten-yard gain, with defensive tackle Doug Hitchens recovering for Steele at the Hays 33. This time, Steele took its time, scoring seven plays later on a 14-yard run by Julius Montgomery. Another PAT put Steele in front, 14-6, or, as the Hays math had it, the Rebels suddenly were 14 points behind the outcome they needed.
The Rebels then moved quickly from the Steele 41 after a Steele penalty. Two plays after Rogers threw 29 yards to Breyfogle, De Santiago ran a yard for a touchdown. The Rebels tied it, 14-14, on a two-point conversion when Brandon Lawrence snagged a tipped pass in the end zone.
Hays suddenly was back in position for its six-point win if it could score and keep Steele pinned down. The Hays defense responded with a three-and-out. Then, the offense moved from its own 42 to the Steele 14 in seven plays. But the drive died and Perez missed a 27-yard field goal 58 seconds into the fourth quarter.
Steele compounded that lost opportunity by taking big chunks on the ground. On second-and-13 from the Steele 14, Dawkins slipped a tackle in the backfield and ran 14 yards. Later, Steele's Lee Hinze took carries of 14 and 24 yards. The drive ended with Montgomery running two yards for a touchdown, giving Steele a 21-14 lead.
Hays found itself with one last chance to tie the game and force overtime when it took the ball at its own 11 with 2:58 left. Three completed passes, a defensive pass interference call and Rogers' 10-yard run tied the game with 1:38 left.
But overtime opened a difficult situation for the Rebels, because Steele didn't have to win the game so long as it lost by fewer than six points. In the end, Steele (9-1 overall, 6-1 District 26-4A) won by six in the second overtime, leaving the Rebels (6-4, 4-3) out of the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
"We just didn't do the things we needed to do," Shelton said.
Worse, the Rebels probably needed only to do one more thing somewhere along the line, score a touchdown here or make a tackle there. As it turned out, they spent themselves just to have a chance at the end.
| Steele | 0 | 0 | 14 | 7 | 8 | 6 | — | 35 |
| HAYS | 0 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 0 | — | 29 |
H — Nikki DeSantiago 3 run (kick failed).
RUSHING: Steele — Dawkins 14-129, Montgomery 12-81, Hinze 8-64, Trevino 3-10, Alfonso Trammell 1-3, Keith Brown 6-4. HAYS — DeSantiago 24-107, Rogers 22-80, Erick Pena 2-4.
PASSING (Att-comp-yards-TD-Int): Steele — Trevino 2-4-13-0-0. HAYS — Rogers 14-25-172-0-0.
RECEIVING: Steele — Steven Floyd 1-11, Hinze 1-2. HAYS — Paul Breyfogle 8-124, Trey Berry 3-34, Lawrence 2-9, Colton Boothe 1-5.
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S — Duane Dawkins 65 run (Matt Nelson kick).
S — Julius Montgomery 14 run (Nelson kick).
H — DeSantiago 6 run (Brandon Lawrence pass from Clayton Rogers).
S — Montgomery 2 run (Nelson kick), 6:43.
H — Rogers 10 run (Alex Perez kick), 1:38.
S — Montgomery 8 run (Lee Hinze pass from Jacob Trevino).
H — DeSantiago 2 run (Rogers run).
S — Dawkins 10 run (no conversion attempted).
Steele HAYS First down 14 22 Rushes 44 48 Rushing yards 291 191 Att-comp-TD 2-4-0 14-25-0 Passing yards 13 172 Had intercepted 0 0 Returns-yards 3-22 6-64 Punts-average 3-29.7 1-38.0 Fumbles-lost 1-1 2-1 Penalties-yards 8-70 1-15 Time of possession 24:47 23:13
