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YOUTH SPORTS
Chesapeake beats Fairland, clinches league championship
Chesapeake's Josh Browning cuts past Fairland defender Nathan Campbell during the middle school football game on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at Chesapeake.
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CHESAPEAKE -- It is officially safe to say that Chesapeake's middle school football team is the Cardiac Cats.
The Panthers finished off a perfect 7-0 season on Thursday with an 18-8 victory over Fairland to clinch the Ohio Valley Conference middle school title.
Despite the perfect record, Chesapeake had to fend off its share of adversity this season.
"We're 7-0 and four of the seven were close games -- one touchdown or less," Chesapeake coach Chris Ball said. "The good thing about this team was that when we got emotional at some points of the game, we had more than one leader. That's a tribute to them, the parents and the school."
Thursday's contest ended up being a two-score affair, but it certainly went down to the wire.
Fairland got a key fourth-down stop at its own 20-yard line and drove to the Chesapeake 42 , but Chesapeake's Josh Browning picked off his second pass of the game and raced 64 yards for the game-clinching touchdown with just 14 seconds remaining.
The game-clinching interception was sweet revenge for Browning, who had been stopped one foot short on the fourth-down attempt with the Panthers trying to finish off the contest.
"I was just really mad," Browning said of the fourth-down stop. "It went away when I caught the pass (interception) and was running. I'm just glad we won."
Before the interception, Fairland had seized momentum in the second half after Chesapeake jumped to a 12-0 lead at halftime.
The Dragons took the opening drive of the second half and drove 65 yards in 11 plays with Nathan Campbell reaching the ball over the goal line on fourth-and-goal from the 5-yard line with 1:46 left in the third quarter.
"We challenged our defense at halftime and said if we stop them here, we're going to win this thing," Ball said. "Give Fairland credit, they drove the ball down and scored. I thought the second half, Fairland's kids got after it and ours backed down a little bit."
Chesapeake jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the second quarter and appeared to have the game well in hand prior to the second-half surge by Fairland.
Browning caught a 21-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Simeon Combs to open up the scoring with 1:41 left in the first quarter.
Fairland drove as deep as Chesapeake's 9-yard line on the following possession, but was stopped on fourth-down at the Panthers' 14. Three plays later, Chad Meadows ripped off a 77-yard touchdown run for Chesapeake. Meadows finished with 100 yards rushing on 11 carries in the win.
The win came in front of a raucous cheering section at Chesapeake despite less than stellar weather on Thursday evening. School officials said that 128 students stayed after school for an event to cheer on the team before the 6 p.m. kickoff.
Ball said that the strong fan base was a key ingredient in the undefeated season.
"In order to be a championship team at any level, you have to have a lot of things going your way," Ball said. "You have to have players playing hard, coaches working hard to prepare them, parents supporting you and school and administration supporting you. We had everyone on the same page."
FAIRLAND 0 0 8 0 -- 8
CHESAPEAKE 6 6 0 6 -- 18
C -- Browning 21 pass from Combs (run failed)
C -- Meadows 77 run (run failed)
F -- Campbell 5 run (Campbell pass from Sowards)
C -- Browning 64 interception (run failed)
