Hopkins dared to be great on a couple of occasions Friday night against an explosive and undefeated Wyoming Godwin Heights football team.
Though they put a scare into their visitors, when the final gun sounded, Godwin was still explosive and undefeated.
The Wolverines captured their fourth victory without a loss this season, though they came up a touchdown short of their blistering 48-point scoring average in a 41-27 verdict.
Perhaps most interesting were those two “dare to be great” situations.
The host Vikings were down 21-14 late in the second quarter and thanks to a jarring sack by linebacker Ryan Haveman and resultant fumble recovery by Jake Cleypool, they had possession of the football just 25 yards away from the end zone. They had a terrific opportunity to tie the score by halftime and they were due to receive the ball again for the second half kickoff.
Godwin, which destroyed its first three opponents earlier this season, wasn’t accustomed to this kind of challenge. But then came a serious reversal of fortune.
Hopkins had to turn the ball over on downs at the Wolverines’ 14 and there was just 44.6 seconds left until intermission. Unfortunately, it was enough time for the explosive offense to show its stuff.
Quarterback SuSu Davenport, a specialist in throwing short passes to exploit his receivers’ abilities to pile on extra yardage by breaking into the open after the catch, fired just such a TD pass that covered 66 yards to De’Amontae Clark, with only 20 seconds showing on the clock. So instead of knotting the count at 21-all and daring to be great, the Vikings went into the locker room down 28-14.
Yet there was another occasion, midway in the fourth period. Hopkins was down 35-21 and the Wolverines were driving at midfield when junior defensive back Nolan Smith, himself a quarterback on offense, read Davenport like a book, stepped in front of the receiver and picked off the aerial, carrying the ball down to the Godwin 9-yard line. Haveman on the next play went the necessary nine yards, and with less than seven and a half minutes left to play, Hopkins was down only by one score, 35-27.
Godwin’s offense was built on getting its backs and receivers into the open by running wide and short sideline passes. The Wolverines didn’t have much success between the tackles at the line of scrimmage because the likes of Cleypool and Nate Roberts were particularly fond of stuffing them.
Godwin scored its first TD with the game less than three minutes old when Davenport fired a 38-yard scoring strike to Kalen Brown.
The Vikings answered immediately afterward, at the 7:06 mark on a one-yard plunge by Bryce Smith, set up by Jack Lincoln’s alert coverage of a failed onside kick attempt, and some bruising running by Haveman eating up most of the yardage from midfield. Joe Bala converted on the PAT.
But Godwin roared back quickly when Clark got loose on a 28-yard scamper to the end zone and the visiting unit went up 21-7 early in the second period on a 12-yard keeper by Davenport.
Haveman wedged over the goal line from a couple of yards, set up by a nifty inside reverse 29-yard run by Brad Langlois. That made it 21-14 and set up the golden opportunity that did a 180-degree turnaround just before the half.
The Vikings spent virtually all of the third period deep in their own territory and despite some heroic defensive efforts by Smith and Roberts, Godwin struck quickly again by its trademark short pass that turns into a long TD strike. This time it was Ze’Veon McDonald who carried the pigskin 54 yards to the end zone.
Hopkins went to work another grind it out drive in which Haveman topped it off with a 15-yard TD run to bring it to within 14 points, 35-21, and set up Smith’s big play that scared the Wolverines for the second time of the evening.
The Vikings had very little success in their passing game after getting 114 yards through the air against Belding, but used a lot of direct shotgun snaps to different people, including Smith, Haveman and Langlois to try to make Godwin guess who had the ball on each play.
Despite the heroic effort, Hopkins fell to 1-3 with the defeat and 0-2 in the O-K Silver Conference. It appears Godwin and Kelloggsville are on a collision course with one another to decide the league title.
