How a late score by Sapulpa gave Bartlesville football another heartbreaking loss
Like a starving man dreaming of being led to a banquet table but refused a chair, the Bartlesville High School football team extended its collective arm to try to grab an elusive win — only to suffer a nightmarish loss during a rugged shootout Friday night at Custer Stadium.
Sapulpa rallied with its only second-half touchdown to edge the Bruins, 44-36.
Sapulpa scored 36 of its points the first two quarters -- the Chieftains had led by 22, late in the first half, 36-14.
"The first half got away from us," Bruin defensive coordinator Travis Burkhalter said. "Sapulpa hadn't done anything we hadn't seen before."
But, thanks to a a halftime wake-up call, the Bruins (0-2) nearly did a Houdini to escape with a win.
Starting with the final touchdown of the first half, Bartlesville went on a 22-0 run. They turned a 36-20 halftime deficit into a 36-36 tie in the fourth quarter -- not by magic but by good old-fashioned grit and refocus.
The miracle quest couldn't have taken place without the a revitalized defense.
"Going into the second half, we knew what they wanted to do," and made the appropriate changes, explained Burkhalter.
The Bruins adjusted by lining up more in the gaps, which made it harder for Sapulpa to block successfully from the backside, Burkhalter said.
"I think defensively, we did a lot of things in the second half that took away from what they wanted to do," he summarized.
More than schematic tweaking for the second half, there also was the emotional component.
"We turned up the intensity in the locker room," Burkhalter said, part of which was to remind the players of the support and intensity of the crowd.
"They really took it to heart," Burkhalter said.
Bartlesville's 'D' opened the second half by stopping Sapulpa on its first possession to answer the coaches' challenge.
"One of our girls is to get a stop on the first series of the game and the first series of the half," Burkhalter added.
But, as good as the Bruin defense played in the second half, the versatile Sapulpa attack still had one good drive left. Sapulpa strung together a 65-yard, six-minute scoring drive in the fourth quarter to tally the go-ahead touchdown.
The Bruin rally magic ran out of time as Sapulpa snuck away with the win from the wild-and-wooly helmet-banger.
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Battle of the backs
Each team featured a talented iron-willed tailback with steely determination. For Sapulpa, senior Marco Smith rammed out 172 yards on 34 carries and three touchdowns. Combined with one catch for 21 yards, Smith finished with 193 yards. Bartlesville countered with its top-notch ground-flowing dynamo P.J. Wallace. Wallace broke free with 95 yards in the second half on his way to a 173-yard rushing night on 27 carries and two rushing touchdowns. He also hauled in a screen pass and took it 66 yards to the house. His total offensive impact featured 239 total yards and three touchdowns. This was the second consecutive week he recorded more than 200 yards of total offense.
Defense did a Jekyll and Hyde
Sapulpa's offense seemed about as stoppable in the first half as a tsunami. The Chieftains netted 290 yards, 18 first downs and five touchdowns on 39 plays in the first half, leading to the two-touchdown lead going into intermission. But, Bartlesville's defense played with determined stout resolve after halftime. Sapulpa netted only 88 yards in the second half -- and they collected 65 of those yards on their only scoring drive. On their other four possessions of the second half, they gained just 23 yards and one first down. A key for the Bruins' second-half defensive revival was in building a wall around Smith. After he gained 117 yards and scored twice in the first half, Smith gained just 55 (on less than four yards per carry) in the last two quarters. As a result of Bartlesville's defensive resurgence, the Bruin offense went on a 22-0 run.
Seeing yellow
Bartlesville endured 17 penalties for approximately 180 yards and that didn't include the distance loss on Niko's three long kickoff returns, which were mostly negated by penalties. Sapulpa had to deal with only two or three penalties, and one of those was on an off-setting call.
Standouts on defense
Several individual Bruins had their names called on the P.A. for outstanding defensive plays. Early in the first quarter, Haydn Taylor recovered a Sapulpa fumble, which set up Bartlesville's first score. … Late in the opening quarter, Avery Hitchings recorded a coverage sack that forced Sapulpa into third and long. … Casey Young forced an incompletion in the second quarter. … On a third-and-one play in the third quarter, John Torres made a stop for no gain and Sapulpa turned the ball over on downs the next play, setting up a Bruin touchdown. J.D. Boyce made at least one key second-half tackle. … Tyler House made a three-yard tackle for loss early in the final period and Sapulpa punted, which led to Bartlesville's game-tying score.
Receivers step up
Bartlesville quarterback Brett Eaves fed three receivers with more than 45 yards each -- Damien Niko (4-62 one touchdown), Austin Zink (2-47, one touchdown) and Wallace (1-66, one touchdown). Eaves threw for 190 yards on 8-of-14 passing in his starting debut. For Sapulpa, quarterback Colton Howard did most his aerial damage with Kylen Edwards (3-59, two touchdowns). A moment that shouldn't be overlooked is when receiver Jett Scully made a seal block downfield that allowed Wallace to finish off a crowd-energizing touchdown run.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Another late score sends Bartlesville football to heartbreaking loss
