Hayti loses thriller to Thayer, 14-13

HAYTI -- Hayti fell 14-13 to visiting Thayer in a battle of unbeaten, top-three Class 1 teams in the quarterfinal round of the state playoffs.

Hayti came up short of pulling off a last-minute win that would have overcome several fumbles and a bad punt snap that led to one Thayer touchdown.

With a long pass play from Shaun Jones to George Hamilton, the Indians had a first-and-goal from Thayer's 3-yard line in the final minute. But a loss of 4 yards on a run and two incomplete passes were followed by a missed 25-yard field goal by Abidin Bajrami that allowed Thayer to take the win.

Thayer scored the only points of the first half on a 1-yard drive set up by a bad punt snap. Quarterback Jacob Eckmann scored the TD and the kick was good. Otherwise, Thayer managed just one first down in the first half.

Hayti scored 93 seconds into the second half when J.B. Gooden picked off Eckmann's pass and ran it in for a score. The kick was good.

After Hayti fumbled the ball after a pass reception later in the third period, Thayer answered with its only sustained drive, capped by Joshua Huckabee's 35-

yard scoring run one play after Thayer had converted a fourth-and-1.

Huckabee's run accounted for more than one-fourth of Thayer's offense for the night. Michael Lowther added just 23 yards -- on 13 carries -- to his total of 1,613 that he had coming into the game.

Hayti had 221 yards passing but just 14 yards

rushing with the five sacks for 39 yards in losses and a 27-yard loss on the punt snap.

Hayti scored on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Jones to Jerome Covington with 6:18 to play, but the extra-point kick was blocked.

The Indians got the ball back with a little more than 3 minutes to play but Jones' pass on third down was intercepted by Eckmann.

The Indians got the ball back again with a little more than a minute to go and drove to Hayti's 3 before being unable to come up with the go-ahead score.