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Perhaps no stretch of a game this season defines Pearl-Cohn better than the final five minutes of the third quarter Friday night against Station Camp.
On a frustrating night full of penalties and a couple of called-back touchdowns, the Firebirds found themselves up only by 10 against a team they had beaten by 55 earlier in the year. They took that score against them personally.
The next five minutes saw Pearl score back-to-back-to-back touchdowns as they would go on to cruise to a 41-16 and punch their ticket to a quarterfinals rematch with Marshall County.
“We just have to carry on and pick up the mistakes we had tonight,” Firebird Mr. Football semifinalist Zeion Simpson-Smith said. “We can’t take anything for granted right now and just have to keep up the heat.”
Early on, it looked like Station Camp had the formula to potentially pull the upset.
The Bison opened the game with a drive that took nearly half of the first quarter and ended with a field goal. They followed that up with an onside kick that they recovered. However, that drive ended quickly.
Javion Kinnard quickly got the Firebirds on the scoreboard scoring on their first offensive play of the night. Kinnard took a short screen pass from Keshawn Tarleton, broke a few tackles, and had no one between himself and the end zone.
A touchdown strike between Tarleton and D’Arious Reed before the half bumped that lead more. That touchdown drive was sandwiched in between two though plagued by penalties where the Firebirds’ admittedly left points on the field.
“We’ve got a lot of things to work on in practice,” Kinnard said. “We had a rough start with them trying to keep us off of the field. A lot of teams are going to try and do that to us so we have to get over that and perfect it in practice.”
Kinnard’s touchdown in the first half was his only of the night but a long run after Station Camp’s touchdown in the third quarter was the catalyst for the scoring onslaught that would ensue.
Simpson-Smith punched it in shortly after that run and just over two minutes again was back in the end zone. A Tarleton touchdown strike to LaDamion Hunter was the final blow of that stretch and the cushion needed to secure the win.
“Coming out with the first two games of the season that we played, we know to never give up and to never keep our heads down even if things aren’t going right,” Simpson-Smith said. “We play as one, we’re going to win. That’s what happened tonight.”
