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Harding Academy Drops Heartbreaker In State Championship
Published by MoonDog on November 26, 2008
Making their first ever appearance in the Tennessee Division 2-A state football championship, Harding Academy fell to Davidson Academy 36-34 in the TSSAA BlueCross Bowl in Murfreesboro, TN.
Davidson’s Justin Williams rushed for 179 on 37 carries to help give the Bears their third state title in four years and avenged an earlier loss to the Lions on October 3 when Harding beat Davidson 35-27 in Nashville.
“I told you Monday I didn’t know if we would win or lose, but I knew we were gonna go to battle for four quarters, and you saw that’s what they did,” Harding coach Ryan Derrick said.
Harding Academy WR Marlon Brown Had 376 All-Purpose Yards in the Lions Loss
Davidson (10-2) controlled the clock with their running game, keeping the ball for 31:07 while hoping to limit the chances for Harding’s Marlon Brown, the Lions multi-talented wide receiver.
“We knew last time as aggressive as they play defensively, we could do some stuff to hurt ’em,” said Davidson coach Paul Wade. “We’ve had that stuff on the play sheet the whole year. We had it last time; we just didn’t get a chance to use it.”
Brown, one of the nation’s most highly recruited prep prospects, had one of his best games in his career, amassing 376 all-purpose yards and scoring four touchdowns to lead the Lions.
Brown rushed for 139 yards on eight carries and scored on touchdown runs of 73 and 23 yards. He added four receptions for 199 yards and scored on passes of 67 and 55 yards.
For the season, Brown finished with 1,836 all-purpose yards and 20 touchdowns.
Harding trailed 19-14 at halftime despite outgaining the Bears, 224-194, in the first half.
Trailing by two with less than three minutes left, Harding attempted an onside kick, which the Bears recovered before running out the final 2:30.
The Bears Jordan Hood completed 8-of-11 passes for 151 yards and two touchdowns, both to Cody Sandlin, who added a 13-yard TD run and a 28-yard field goal. Sandlin caught 6 passes for 136 yards and scored three touchdowns.
Sandlin’s last touchdown came on a 31-yard reception from Hood to put the Bears up 36-27 with 3:44 left in the game.
In addition to his 179 yards rushing, Williams also threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Spencer Goodwin on a fourth-down conversion.
Williams, just a sophomore, completed the season with a remarkable 2,801 rushing yards and 40 touchdowns on 380 carries.
“It’s a fine line when you’ve got to stop a back of (Williams’) caliber,” Derrick said. “You’ve got to be able to stop gaps, and there’s a fine line of using your secondary to do that and also have them aware of reverses and things like that.
“Our kids were being aggressive trying to stop (Williams), and they got some on us. It boils down to that.”
The Lions’ Phillip Branch completed 14-of-18 passes for 280 yards and two touchdowns. Despite only having the ball for 16:53, Harding piled up 471 yards of offense, converted 6-of-9 third downs and were 1-for-1 on fourth down.
Harding finished their season at 9-3.
Review the complete game statistics here and watch the highlight video here.
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