Riverdale Loses Heartbreaker to McCallie

Untitled Document

STEVE HEATH
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CHATTANOOGA — The drive home on I-24 must have seemed like an eternity.

Riverdale (1-1) had a two touchdown lead late in the fourth quarter but put the ball in the hands of Division II Mr. Football and UT-committment B.J. Coleman three times in the final 2:24 and it led to a heart-breaking finish.

Calmly and precisely, Coleman led Division II No. 5 McCallie (1-0) to a remarkable 33-27 come-from-behind win over the No. 1 ranked Class 5A Warriors at Finley Stadium Friday.

On the final play of the game from the Riverdale 48, Coleman’s Hail Mary bounced off the hands of two Warrior defenders and into the grasp of wide receiver Walter Dozier for the win.

“I put my hands on it,” said Riverdale defensive back Jeremy McClain. “I don’t know what happened. I was too busy caught up into thinking, ‘it’s overtime, it’s overtime.’”

Coleman, who finished with 270 passing yards and three touchdowns, completed a TD pass to Dozier with 1:35 left to cut Riverdale’s lead to 27-20.

With McCallie out of timeouts, the Warriors ran a quarterback sneak and Scott Thomas, who had rushed for 125 yards and two touchdowns, lost a fumble.

The Blue Tornado scored again with 22 seconds left on a two-yard pass to Johnny Newman for the tie. The Warriors tried one last chance to score in regulation — and it back-fired.

Thomas’s pass was intercepted by linebacker Thomas Green giving McCallie two shots at the end zone with only eight seconds left in the game.

“That wasn’t a wise decision on my part,” said Riverdale coach Ron Aydelott of the pass play that was picked off by Green. “(Thomas) was the reason for where we were. That’s on me. I made bad decisions and that’s the bottom line. I’ll accept full responsibility.”

Riverdale’s offense amassed 449 rushing yards and had three backs (McClain had 128 yards and Monty Newsom added 114) over 100 yards.

Riverdale scored two touchdowns in the second half before McCallie had the football. Thomas scored on a 3-yard run for a 13-6 lead. After the Blue Tornado fumbled the kickoff Thomas scored from seven yards out.

Box Score: McCallie 33, Riverdale 27

Friday, August 25, 2006

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	OT	Total
Riverdale	6	0	14	7	0	27
McCallie	3	3	7	20	0	33

First Quarter
R — Ben Atakpu 10 run (kick blocked), 5:07
M — Joel Bradford 32 FG, :20
Second Quarter
M — Bradford 45 FG, :00
Third Quarter
R — Scott Thomas 3 run (Jasper Driskill kick), 7:42
R — Thomas 7 run (Driskill kick), 5:36
M — Reggie Poindexter 41 run (Bradford kick), 4:18
Fourth Quarter
R — Chad Hunter 2 run (Driskill kick), 8:24
M — Walter Dozier 11 pass from B.J. Coleman (Bradford kick), 1:35
M — Johnny Newman 2 pass from Coleman (Bradford kick), :22
M — Dozier 48 pass from Coleman, :00

Game statistics

	First downs	Rushes	Passing	Pass yards	Fumbles	Punts	Penalties
Riverdale	21	55-449	0-3-1	0	2-1	2-23.5	4-25
McCallie	23	22-165	20-40-1	270	1-1	2-53.5	3-36

Individual statistics

McCallie

Rushing

B.J. Coleman: 6-29
Anthony Conney: 7-42
Walter Dozier: 1-14
Reggie Poindexter: 8-80, 1 TD

Passing (CMP-ATT-INT-YDS)

B.J. Coleman: 20-40-1-270

Receiving

Joel Bradford: 7-95
Walter Dozier: 8-130, 2 TD
Johnny Newman: 4-37, 1 TD
Reggie Poindexter: 1-8

Kicking (FG-FGA XP-XPA Pts.)

Joel Bradford: 2-2 3-3 9

Riverdale

Rushing

Ben Atakpu: 7-64, 1 TD
Paul Boykin: 2-1
Chad Hunter: 5-12, 1 TD
Marques Locke: 2-5
Jeremy McClain: 11-128
Monty Newsom: 11-114
Scott Thomas: 17-125, 2 TD

Passing (CMP-ATT-INT-YDS)

Scott Thomas: 0-3-1-0

Punting

Scott Thomas: 2-23.5

Kicking (FG-FGA XP-XPA Pts.)

Jasper Driskill: 0-1 3-4 3

Scoreboard - November 25, 2011

Teams	Score

Riverdale Maryville	14 42	Final