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The stage was set almost perfectly Friday night for the Newbury Black Knights football team.
After a convincing win in their opener, they welcomed a St. John team they had handled well last year, and that was coming off a tough loss on opening night.
In fact the last time the Heralds had won a game was September 2015 against Newbury.
With stellar backs each way and a wealth of talent growing quickly for both teams, the home opener for Newbury had the makings of a high level battle, and absolutely nobody could feel they didn’t get their money’s worth.
But after battling back and forth all night in a very hard hitting ballgame marked with big plays, time stoppages due to injury from big hits, and the never-say-die attitudes of both squads, a huge play by St. John running back Christian Blank with only 21.8 seconds left in the game propelled the Heralds to their first win in a couple years, a 46-40 triumph over a solid Black Knight squad.
The Heralds struck early and often in the beginning of the game. Having demolished Fairport last week, the Black Knights got the opening kickoff of their home opener. No excuses for not being fired up with a spot like that.
Maybe it was a tad too much. After losing 21 yards on a loss on a play and two penalties, Johnny Chambers rolled out to pass, was about to be swamped by what seemed to be the entire Herald roster, which was the formula all night for St. John, and fired a pass downfield intended for a wide open receiver. But Blank made sure the ball did not get to its target, picking the pass off at the Black Knight 21 and returning it to the nine yard line.
Two plays later, David Cumberledge, who passed for 222 yards and five touchdowns on the night, found Blank from the nine to open scoring.
However, with a powerful runner like Chambers, there were no secrets as to how the Black Knights would answer. Seven plays later, Chambers broke over right end and went in from the 17, but the home squad did not make the conversion.
Starting from their own 39, running from the wildcat formation that works for both teams with stud runners, Blank carried five straight times to traverse the distance, and a successful conversion put the Heralds up 16-6.
A short punt set up St. John at the Black Knight 36 yard line, and Blank passed to Nick Burgard from that position to open a surprising 22-6 lead at the end of the first period.
Newbury capped a 50 yard drive early in the second period, as Chambers found Noah Parsons with a pass in the corner of the end zone from 22 yards out.
With 1:44 left before halftime, Cumberledge found Brandon Blank from the 25 yard line to open a 28-12 lead, and it looked like the Heralds may have landed the knockout punch.
One thing the Black Knights learned last year, though, was the importance of battling the entire 48 minutes. With 10:6 seconds left before intermission, Chambers capped a 40 yard drive set up by a 39 yard kickoff return from Jaden Cicchella by finding Tino Johnson alone over the middle for a 21 yard score.
The hard hitting of the first half, with the Heralds having a slight edge only due to the huge size edge they had in the middle of the lines from 310-pound Ron Nejbauer, 255-pound Noah Olson and 260-pound Derrick Elrod, began to take its toll, but not before Newbury staged a massive rally of its own to start the second half, led by Anthony Harley and Mike Weston.
Weston stopped a Herald drive with his first of two fumble recoveries at the St. John 36. Christian Blank immediately got it back by intercepting a Chambers pass on the first play thereafter.
Forced to punt deep in their own territory, though, a bad snap eluded the kicker, and by the time the punter recovered the ball, Mitch Sanders stopped any other movements, and the Black Knights had the ball at the Herald eight yard line. Two plays later, Harley broke to the right on a counter play to the left and scored to cut the lead to 28-26.
A long drive by St. John got the ball into Newbury territory, but Weston recovered his second fumble on the night at the home team 49, and Harley repeated his last scoring effort as the Heralds congregated around Chambers in the middle of the backfield. His fine faking led to Harley, a speedy sophomore runner, escaping through the line untouched, and he went 51 yards to give Newbury its first lead of the night.
Harley struck again on the next drive. Moving well into Newbury territory , Cumberledge fired deep down the right sideline for Burgard, but Harley stepped in front of the wideout at the nine and outraced everybody for a 91-yard score.
Before anyone could blink, Newbury seemed to be in a comfy spot with a 40-28 lead, but the hard hitting was taking its toll.
“I think the turning point in the game came when Johnny (Chambers) got hurt the second time and had to miss a couple plays,” Newbury coach Ryan Mathews said. “It was a hard hitting game all night, St. John really has improved a lot, and then when Anthony also got hurt right away after that play and fumbled the ball, we just couldn’t quite get momentum back again.”
That situation occurred after Cumberledge found Christian Blank all alone along the right sideline on the first play of the fourth quarter to cut the Newbury lead to 40-34 on a 65-yard pass play.
With respect from both sides for Blank and Chambers, every kickoff on the night was booted out of bounds, evading any big returns. Other big plays still happened.
The first play after the long Blank score, Chambers was squashed for a yard loss. On the next play, Elrod sniffed out the trickery in the backfield by Chambers and nearly ate up Harley, who had the ball, and a patch of turf. They went down in a heap, with the ball underneath Harley and Elrod sitting on top of both of them, recovering the loose ball as a reward on the Newbury thirty.
Nine seconds later, Sanders returned the favor by grabbing a loose ball at the twenty seven of Newbury.
St. John forced a punt, and a 69 yard drive ensued, with Cumberledge hitting Christian Blank again from the 10 for the tying score with 7:21 left to play.
St. John got another chance with 2:07 left after taking over the ball on downs on their own 39. A 37-yard pass play from Blank to Cumberledge set up the Heralds at the Newbury 15, and on third down, Cumberledge found Blank on a short screen pass in the right flat. Eluding a couple tacklers who had sniffed out the play, Blank dashed to the end zone with 21.8 ticks left, and the first St. John win in several years put the end to the Newbury home opener.
St John won the yardage battle 487-250, largely with the big pass plays and a defense that shadowed Chambers all night, limiting him to just 78 yards on 21 carries. The All-Ohio quarterback, who was honored before the game along with Alex Lampert for being honored as All-Ohioans last season for Newbury, also passed for 74 yards, but three interceptions limited ball movement.
While disappointed with the outcome and some of the issues during the game that led to it, Williams did not get down on his players.
“You have to credit St. John for the improvement and growth they have accomplished since last year,” he said. “We’ll just see how we rebound from this game. We did a nice job coming back after that first period, but we just couldn’t get it done late in the game.
“I don’t know much about Horizon Science Academy, who we play next week, but our effort and execution will need to improve a lot if we are going to win that game.”
Weston played a huge game in the trenches, considering he was outsized a great deal, as did the rest of the interior forces for the Black Knights. They played with heart every play, but the Heralds smelled that first win in a while and got it done.
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