Calallen Wins Game, But It was Ugly

The Calallen Wildcats beat the Gregory-Portland Wildcats 17-14 in what turned out to be a dramatic finish, but never should have happened. Calallen's defense shut down the GP in the fourth quarter, but errors by Calallen and bad coaching decison nearly pushed the game to overtime.

Calallen and GP fought back and forth in the first half. GP had a big run from their running back Joey Sanchez for 58 yards to jump out to an early lead. Then, Calallen behind many superb plays by quarterback Tanner Sparks passed and ran the ball, making GP's defense look bad. He put together two nice drives and Calallen scored two touchdowns, taking a 14-7 lead at half.

In the third quarter, GP came out on fire, running the ball down Calallen's throat and scoring on a big run to tie the score at 14-14. Calallen came back and drove the ball down to the four yard line. On third and goal, Sparks overthrew his target, so they had to settle for a field goal. GP came back, again, running the ball at will and driving down the five of Calallen. At that point, the defense clamped down, stopping GP on three downs. For some reason, GP decided to go for it on fourth and goal and failed to score.

Calallen drove down the in a methodical way. They had a mix of running plays and passes from Sparks. On a key play, Sparks scrambled and found a receiver wide open, but he had to lob the pass to get it over the secondary and the safety from GP made a nice interception.

Again, Calallen's defense stopped GP, pushing them back and putting pressure on their offense. GP punted the ball, but Calallen muffed the punt, fumbling around midfield. GP took over and got one first down. After that, Calallen started pressuring and containing the running game, pushing GP in reverse. They even stopped GP, forcing them to give it up on downs with about a little over a minute left in th game.

All Calallen had to do was kneel down as GP had only had one timeout left. They could have run out the clock, but on the first play, they decide to run the ball. Sparks got a nine yards and was covering up, then he got hit hard and coughed up the football.

GP took over around on their own 40. A couple of plays and they were getting pushed back again by the Calallen defense. Then they got a nice play for about 20 yards on a pass to the tight end. They drove the ball down to the 20 yard line. With :02 on the clock, the field goal tried a 37 yard field goal and missed it wide left. Game over and Calallen fans walked out breathing a sigh of relief.

The big questions for Calallen is why they didn't put away GP. They kept making mistakes, especially in the fourth, giving GP a chance to stay in the game. Those kind of mistakes will hurt them down the line and they should have won by a wider margin. Other than a few big plays from GP, they outplayed them and deserved to win easily.

For GP, why didn't Coach George Harris go for the touchdown at the end of third quarter and pass on the field goal after getting stuffed by Calallen's defense? It's fair to say he wanted to win the game against Calallen and not tie it. Maybe if this was a district game, he would have done things differently, but GP fans said this is Calallen and he should have played it, like a playoff game.

Calallen is off next week, while GP will travel to Buc Stadium in Corpus Christi to take on Carroll.