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Fairfield 19, Hamilton 15
Indians rally past Big Blue with late 91-yard score
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By Jay Morrison,
Staff Writer
1:40 AM Saturday, October 31, 2009
HAMILTON — Offensive coordinator Rod Ritzie called the audible, and senior quarterback Justin McCray ran it to perfection.
Trailing Hamilton by two while backed up at his own 9-yard line in the fourth quarter, McCray hit senior Jamical Thomas with a 91-yard touchdown pass that lifted the Fairfield football team to a 19-15 victory Friday night, Oct. 30, at Virgil Schwarm Stadium.
“We had a slant called, but when we saw they had the quarterback (Brian Cleckley) guarding him, we decided to throw a fade,” said McCray, who was emotional and fighting back tears after helping lead an Indians team that had won just two games in three years to a final record of 6-4 overall and 5-2 in the Greater Miami Conference.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better senior season,” added McCray, who also hit Chris Tally with a 74-yard touchdown in the first quarter. “These guys are like my family out here. All these seniors who stuck with it through three different coaches in three years, I’m just so proud of them.”
Cleckley was playing cornerback only because De’Marcia Jhyraun had to come out of the game with a busted chinstrap. The Big Blue junior had tight coverage on Thomas, but McCray dropped the ball in perfectly, and Thomas sprinted the final 50 yards to the end zone for the first touchdown of his prep career.
“His dad passed away from cancer last year, and I told him before the game I was going to get him a touchdown in his final game,” McCray said of Thomas. “I told him his dad is in heaven watching him, and that’s why he scored.”
It was a sour defeat for Big Blue (2-8, 1-6 GMC), who lost their sixth game in which they were leading or tied heading into the fourth quarter.
“It was like a broken record this year,” Hamilton coach Jim Place said. “I’ve never seen a team like this. They’re good kids, and they play hard. It’s just unbelievable.
“I think it just has to go down as one of those years,” Place continued. “Sometimes you have years when everything goes right, and sometimes you have years where everything goes wrong.”
Big Blue never trailed in the game until the 91-yard bomb in the fourth quarter. Devin Jarrett gave Hamilton an early lead when he capped the team’s first drive of the game with a 5-yard touchdown run on the way to a career-high 255-yard performance that was just 12 yards shy of Derrick Wilkinson’s school record.
But the Indians thwarted each of Hamilton’s final two drives with fourth-down stops near midfield to preserve the win.
“What a great high school football game,” FHS coach Aaron Fitzstephens said. “We struggled in the red zone, but we hit two big pass plays, and the defense stepped up when they had to.”
Jarrett scored on an 11-yard run with 8:10 left in the second quarter to put Big Blue up 15-7, but those would be their final points of the game.
Fairfield kicker Josh Pfaff drilled field goals of 35 and 29 yards to get the Indians within 15-13 and set the stage for the McCray-to-Thomas TD.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2193 or jmorrison@coxohio.com.
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