During the third quarter of Friday night's 35-19 loss to visiting Southern, Rising Sun coach Rich Opp muttered to no one in particular, "That counter criss-cross. I'm going to be seeing it in my sleep." The Anne Arundel County school scored on its first four possessions, due in large part to the play where a running back takes a handoff and then hands the ball inside to another running back who is heading in the opposite direction.
The Bulldogs scored on their first four possessions and never led by fewer than seven points after the first quarter. After Southern took a 7-0 lead, Rising Sun faced a 4th and 1 from its own 36 and coach Rich Opp elected to try for the first down. But the Tigers' Maurice McCargo was stopped inches short of the first down and the Bulldogs made it 14-0 two plays later. "I wanted to show our offense I have confidence they can move the ball," Opp said of the decision. "That was it right there. Instead of the same, oh heck, we have to punt." The coach's confidence in his offense was eventually rewarded. Down by two touchdowns, Rising Sun embarked on an eight-play, 66-yard drive, all running plays, capped by a one-yard sneak by quarterback Nate McCullough. Jesse Herrera's PAT narrowed the gap to 14-7. Southern countered with a 54-yard gallop on the last play of the first quarter to lengthen its lead to 21-7. Rising Sun responded by driving to the Bulldogs' 38-yard line. On 4th and 3, Opp chose to punt instead of going for a first down as he had from inside his own territory on the first series of the game. "I wanted to pin them deep," he said. "I was concerned at that time that our defense wouldn't be able to stop them. I wanted to give them as much field to have to run with, pin them as deep as possible, and who knows, maybe the bobble the punt. That's my logic." Southern scored to make it 28-7 at halftime before the Tigers demonstrated what Opp had addressed with his team prior to kickoff. "I wrote 'resilience' on the chalkboard and asked someone to define that for me, put it in context, what does it mean?" Opp said. "Brett Fromal said, 'It means when you get knocked down, you get back up.' I said, 'That's right. That nails it.' If things don't go well in the game like they won't go well in life sometimes, then you get off your back." The Tigers got off their backs on the first possession of the third quarter. Herrera scampered 42 yards on the first play from scrimmage. Four plays later, McCullough hit Wyatt Griffith in the end zone from 18 yards out. The PAT was missed leaving Rising Sun down 21-13. Then came the backbreaker. Southern's Tyler Nation picked up the kickoff on his own 35, broke a bunch of Tiger tackle attempts, and raced to the end zone to extend the Bulldogs' bulge to 35-13. Rising Sun sliced the deficit down to 35-19 with 5:09 left in the fourth quarter on five-yard run by Herrera. The touchdown was set up by a 39-yard completion from McCullough to Jack Stewart. "I thought we played more relaxed in the second half," Opp said. "The first half, we were a little tight, a little nervous. You've got five or six sophomores on the team. The coaches might've been a little nervous, too, to be honest." The Tigers' Josh Worrilow recovered a fumble on on the Rising Sun 28 with 5:09 remaining. Needing two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions to tie the game, the Tigers got as far as the Southern 20-yard line before a chop block penalty slowed the momentum and the Tigers turned the ball over on the next play. Herrera led the Tigers with 160 yards on 15 carries. "I thought Jesse ran the ball well," said Opp. "I thought we blocked well. I bet you last year at this time we wouldn't have had 19 points. I think our blocking rules are much clearer to the kids this year because we know them better. And you have kids like (lineman) Curtis Cox and juniors that have come back and know the offense the second time around." McCullough made a solid debut at quarterback, completing 8 of 17 passes for 149 yards. "I thought Nate did a heck of a job commanding the team for his first varsity start," said Opp. "We moved the ball. I would be concerned for very obvious reasons if we weren't moving the ball, but we were." The Tigers travel to C. Milton Wright Friday night. Rising Sun has lost 14 games in a row, 19 of 20, and 29 of its last 31. Comments are closed.
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