Prep football playoffs: Spoiled ending

Published 12:02 am Saturday, November 22, 2014

WARNER ROBINS — If the 200-mile trip Dalton High School’s football team had to take for the second round of the Class 5A state playoffs wasn’t disadvantageous enough, the two fumbles lost by the Catamounts made their chances of winning against Northside-Warner Robins even smaller.

Add in a pair of first-half punts Dalton had blocked and the odds looked nearly impossible.

Then factor in the loss of senior middle linebacker Nate Mays to a knee injury at the end of the first half, and Dalton’s chances of a victory seemed to become miniscule.

Even with all of that working against them, the Cats nearly pulled off a miracle on the chewed-up McConnell-Talbert Stadium turf on Friday night.

Instead, their season ended with a 30-21 loss to Region 2-5A champion Northside (11-1).

“When you play the good football teams, you almost have to play a perfect football game to give yourself a chance,” said Dalton coach Matt Land, whose Cats finished the season 9-3 and were runners-up in Region 7-5A. “We knew that this was going to be a game of inches, and I think the turnovers — more than the blocked punts — really put us in a situation that we couldn’t overcome.”

Northside running back Willie Jordan carried the ball 26 times for 153 yards and quarterback Tobias Oliver added 148 yards on 16 carries as the Eagles rushed for 365 yards.

Even with its errors, Dalton held a 21-20 lead at the start of the fourth quarter before a 21-yard Justin Alonzo field goal with 7:31 remaining gave the Eagles the lead for good.

Oliver added a 1-yard touchdown with 52 seconds remaining for the game’s final margin.

“We knew Dalton was a really good football team,” Northside coach Kevin Kinsler said. “When two great football teams get together, regardless of the situation you’re faced with, you have to figure out a way to get it done. I’m proud of the way our guys figured it out.”

All 17 of Northside’s first-half points came off of Dalton miscues.

After Dalton senior running back Kelvis Rhodes’ first-quarter fumble led to a 26-yard Justin Alonzo field goal, the Cats had back-to-back punts blocked by Northside on the following two possessions.

Oliver capitalized on both, scoring on runs of 32 and 24 yards for a 17-0 Northside lead with 9:24 remaining in the half before Dalton began chipping away.

With the game slipping from the Cats, Dalton senior quarterback Payton Veraldi — who finished 10 of 18 passing for 237 yards and three touchdowns — began to lead a comeback.

After starting the game 1-for-6 through the air, Veraldi connected on his next eight attempts, with his fourth in that streak coming on a 12-yard pass to tight end Chase Westfall with 6:46 remaining in the half to get the Cats on the board.

On the first play of the Cats’ next possession, Veraldi found running back Tyler Noland streaking up the sideline for a 72-yard pass to pull the cats within 3 points with 1:27 remaining in the half.

After forcing Northside to punt on its first possession of the second half, Noland then fumbled the punt return, and the Eagles capitalized again on a 41-yard field goal for a 20-17 lead just five minutes into the second half.

Dalton responded with a three-play, 76-yard drive, highlighted by passes of 43 and 30 yards from Veraldi to Zek Cobb, the latter for a touchdown, and Kiko Rodriguez’s extra point gave Dalton a 21-20 edge with 6:15 remaining in the third quarter.

“It just goes to show that we can compete against big-time schools,” Veraldi said. “Even down 17-0, there was never a doubt in our minds that we could come back and try to win this game.”

Cobb led the Cats with five catches for 115 yards as senior Peter Sigmon — the Cats’ leading receiver this season — missed the game due to illness.

Dalton’s running game stalled for much of the night as fullback Keith Adams led the team with four carries for 30 yards. Rhodes had nine carries for 11 yards, while Veraldi had three carries for 8 yards.

The end of the season gave the Cats time to reflect before packing up for the winter.

Heartbreaking losses to Calhoun and Kell earlier in the season, along with Friday’s loss, were just blips on the radar of a great year in Land’s view.

“I’m proud of this football team, they’ve just done outstanding things,” Land said. “We walked up here into Class 5A and everybody was telling us what we couldn’t do (this season). These guys decided to come out here and show the community what we could do.”