By Joseph Staszewski
It was Christ the King’s most enjoyable win to date because it was the toughest.
You could hear the words “3-0” amid the cheers from the Royals’ sideline as the final knee was taken on their hard-fought 22-14 CHSFL AA-A win over visiting Bishop Ford at Juniper Valley Park Saturday afternoon. Head Coach Chris Higgins gave assistant Adam Kull a running chest bump during the coaches meeting afterward before walking to an excited bunch of players in the nearby end zone.
“It meant so much to us because it was our homecoming game,” running back Kevin Chin said. “It was a hard fight through the whole day.”
It was the senior who provided the winning score, a 1-yard touchdown run with 2:42 left in the game. The 16-play, 46-yard drive that started the fourth quarter after a Ford fumble was filled with starts and stops for CK (3-1, 3-0). A holding and a personal foul penalty backed the Royals up 25 yards at one point, but runs of 7 and 16 yards on third and fourth down by quarterback Terrel Hunt helped erase that.
He also added an 11-yard scamper on 3rd-and-9 to set up Chin’s scoring run. Ford ran just seven offensive plays in the second half.
“I just had to keep my team level-headed and tell my O-line to keep blocking so we can get to the end zone,” said Hunt, who hurt his back on a fourth-down play on the Ford 11 that ended the Royals previous drive.
His line did exactly that on the final drive, even on a day that saw Hunt constantly forced to scramble, thanks to the Falcons outside linebacker blitzes. It limited the Royals’ passing game outside of a 23-yard pass to Darrius Pritchett (six catches, 54 yards) to cut the Falcons’ lead to 8-7 early in the second quarter.
Hunt, who ran for 85 yards on 13 carries and completed eight passes for 64 yards, added an 18-yard scoring run to the outside left with 47 seconds left in the first half. He then hit Chris Hartney for the two-point conversion to make it 14-8.
Ford (1-3, 0-3) opened the scoring with a 2-yard TD run from Devon Mitchell (30 carries, 127 yards) and two-point conversion catch from Devonte Linton early in the second quarter. Mitchell pounded his way through the CK line the entire first half. The Falcons carried some momentum into the break when sophomore quarterback Xaviah Mattocks connected with Bryan Lopez for a 39-yard strike down the left sideline and later beat a heap of tacklers to the front right corner of the end zone with no time remaining in the second quarter to make it 14-14.
“As long as I have been here, Ford had always given us their best game,” Higgins said. “We were really nervous about coming into this week. They are good at what we are really bad at, straight up the middle runs and toughness.”
It’s the reason he and his coaching staff installed a 50 defense this week especially for Ford. The unit came, though, on the game’s final drive with 2:40 left. Joe Thompson sacked Mattocks on first down, combined on a sack with Hartney on third and Mattock’s last pass was tipped at the line.
“We came out knowing that defense was going to win the game,” Pritchett said.
It was a victory that brought nothing but smiles and continued optimism to a determined Christ the King team. This type of success and potentially challenging for an ‘AA’ title is something the Royals talked about in the offseason.
“I’ve never experienced this,” Chin said. “It’s like the greatest feeling in the world.”
