Cooper quarterback Cam O’Hara might be a little bit sore when he gets out of bed Saturday morning.
But the price was worth it.
O’Hara hit Isaiah Johnson for an 11-yard touchdown pass with 38 seconds remaining to give the Jaguars a 21-14 victory over rival Ryle, their first win in the series since 2015.
“I’m just glad we finally found a way to win a freaking tight ballgame against these guys,” Jaguars coach Randy Borchers said.
The junior quarterback took plenty of hits on Friday night, chased around by the Ryle front all night long. He was sacked five times and hit many others.
“He grew up tonight. That kid took some hits tonight,” Borchers said. “He’s going to feel it tomorrow. We’ll make sure we have plenty of ice for him in the morning.”
Despite O’Hara’s ability to escape the pocket and find his receivers downfield, the Ryle front made things tough on him the entire night.
“People say I can’t run or whatever and I know we have a young o-line, but throughout the week I worked on scrambling and getting outside the pocket,” O’Hara said.
A muffed punt from Landon Lorms set up the game-winner as the Raiders had all the momentum on their side, trailing 14-0 at halftime and unable to get anything going offensively. Lorms tried to field a punt at the 14 as the Jaguars had a 4th and 27 at midfield.
“Mistakes,” Raiders coach Mike Engler said. “We were playing for overtime, didn’t think they could beat us in overtime, but it happens. We made some halftime adjustments, stepped up in the second half.”
Corey Freihofer jumped on the loose ball, the Jaguars suddenly 14 yards away from beating their rivals for the first time in nine tries.
“It felt good to finally make a play and win it,” Borchers said. “If you go back over the years, a lot of those games came down to one or two plays and we were the team to never to be able to make those plays. Tonight we did.”
O’Hara first made a play with his feet for a three-yard gain to the Raiders 11. He then was able to buy some extra time on the next play, hitting Johnson on an improvised route for the game-winner.
“Cam told me I had an out route and I ended up running an out and up,” Johnson said. “The corners were jumping up on it all game, so I just ran the out and came up and then he just hit me. It’s a great experience to finally beat these guys.”
The Jaguars dominated the game’s first 24 minutes, holding the Raiders to just 54 yards and three first downs in the first half.
O’Hara’s seven-yard TD run capped off a 13 play, 65-yard drive to open the game. He hit Jaidan Combs for a 29-yard touchdown in the final minute of the half, Combs breaking through a couple of tackles to find paydirt.
The Jaguars defense rose to the occasion for the majority of the night, on top of the fumble recovered in the final minute, they picked off Raiders quarterback Nathan Verax four times, Ryker Campbell with two, Isaac Brown and Dax Bolen the final one in the closing monents.
“Defense played lights out all the way around,” Borchers said. “Ryker Campbell is one of the most underrated players on our team. He came up from the safety position all night long and made plays.”
Ryle needed halftime badly to make some adjustments and they did. After an interception on their first possession out of the half, Verax started to find room with his legs and help get the Raiders up the field along with Jacob Savage’s bruising running style. A 25-yard Verax run later set up a Savage 3-yard touchdown to finally get them on the board with 5:55 left in the third, the snap on the extra point going awry and making it 14-6.
Even with missing a field goal on a red zone trip, the Raiders had all the momentum. Cooper came up empty on three straight possessions, the last a fumble after a 41-yard gain. Verax hit Dylan Lee for an 11-yard touchdown pass with 3:15 to play, the junior quarterback also hitting Lee for the two-point conversion to tie the game up.
Cooper mounted a drive into Ryle territory on back-to-back 27-yard passes to Johnson and Austin Alexander, but went backwards from there as Dillon Smith and Jacob Savage picked up back-to-back sacks to force a punt at midfield.
“Lorms has the best hands on our football team,” Engler said. “Never in a million years I thought he would drop it. Sometimes it happens. One thing I’ll guarantee you is he won’t drop another ball the rest of the season. It stings, it hurts, but we’ll move on to next week.”
The punt was a side-winder, one that was not only hard to read off O’Hara’s foot, who also handles the punting duties, but hard to catch as well.
“I just kick it,” O’Hara said. “I never really practice punting, just kick the ball. I’m not good enough to punt with a spiral or anything like that.”
O’Hara finished with 356 passing yards on 26-of-41 passing and accounting for all the touchdowns, two passing, one rushing. Combs snagged eight passes for 132 yards, Johnson also clearing the century mark with seven receptions for 114 yards. Alexander finished with six catches for 72 yards and was a menace defensively with a sack and multiple pressures.
Despite Verax’s misfortunes in the passing game, he was able to combine for 169 passing and rushing yards. Savage added 61 rushing yards on 12 carries. Lee caught four balls for 21 yards and the score, Lorms with three receptions for 37 yards.
Ryle returns to action next week when they host Highlands.
Cooper plays at Campbell County.
Some more photos from Friday night’s showdown in Union, provided by Charles Bolton:
JAGUARS 21, RAIDERS 14
RYLE — 0-0-6-8 — 14
COOPER — 7-7-0-7 — 21
Scoring Plays
1st Quarter
(C) O’Hara 7-yard run (6:16) Tibbs kick
2nd Quarter
(C) O’Hara 29-yard pass to Combs (:41) Tibbs kick
3rd Quarter
(R) Savage 3-yard run (5:55) Run failed
4th Quarter
(R) Verax 11-yard pass to Lee (3:15) Verax pass to Lee
(C) O’Hara 11-yard pass to Johnson (:38) Tibbs kick
Game Stats
Passing Yards: Ryle 83 (Verax 10/19, TD, 4 INT), Cooper 356 (O’Hara 26/41, 2 TD)
Rushing Yards: Ryle 165 (Savage 12-61, Verax 14-86, Galicia 5-18), Cooper -16 (Maher 12-4, O’Hara 10-(minus)20)
Receiving: Ryle (Lorms 3-37, Galicia 1-25, Lee 4-21, Savage 2-0), Cooper (Combs 8-132, Johnson 7-114, Alexander 6-72, Ewell 2-26, Campbell 1-7, Maher 2-5)
Turnovers: Ryle 5, Cooper 1
Penalties: Ryle 5-35, Cooper 5-35
Records: Ryle 2-1, Cooper 3-0