Broadway rallies past Fort

FORT DEFIANCE — No amount of pounding drums could stop the Indians from being gobbled up by Broadway on Friday evening as the Gobblers beat Fort Defiance 14-8.

Fort looked to be off to a good start when they forced a safety in the first 15 minutes of the game putting the Indians up by two until the third quarter. But a series of turnovers, two in the first half, ultimately gave Broadway the assistance it needed to whomp the competition.

Plagued by uncompleted passes and unsuccessful punting attempts, both the Indians and Gobblers traded the pigskin back and forth, while moving up and down the field. That was until Fort’s quarterback Chris Huffman got serious at the end of the third quarter with a series of carries and a pass to running back Nate Hill that landed the Blue within yards of the end zone.

As Huffman carried the ball to the Broadway three-yard line, a personal foul gave him an extra yard and a whole new set of downs to work with. As Huffman received the ball in the next play, the Indians beat a path and drove up the middle but were stopped. Then Aaron McMillion got his chance to carry the ball straight into the end zone for a touchdown, giving Fort an 8-0 lead over Broadway.

Broadway wasn’t beaten yet. With five more carries and two passes, the Gobblers’ running back Joel Phillips ran for his team’s first touchdown of the game, leaving Broadway two points behind the Indians, who completed a two-point conversion, tying the game at eight.

With less than a minute left in the game, Broadway’s Kyle VanLear passed to Jacob Diehl who carried the ball to a touchdown from about 39 yards out, giving the Gobbler’s their win over Fort.

Gobblers’ head coach Brad Lutz gave Fort and its coach a lot of credit.

“To put in four quarters against a team like that, it’s amazing,” he said. “[Fort] Coach [Dan] Rolfe did an outstanding job. We’re just glad to get outta here with a win.”

But Rolfe was more introspective.

“I wanna throw up right now,” he said. “We would’ve like to come out with a win. Any turnovers aren’t good and when you have them in the red zone, it’s worse. But when they caught fire, they caught fire.

“The kids know how close we are. We’re just gonna prep for the Rockbridge game, [because] they’re all big when you’re 1 in 9.”