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Dexter rallies late to beat Bluejays
CHARLESTON -- It would have been easy to write off Dexter going into Friday's game against Charleston.
With starting quarterback Peyton Pollock on the sideline the Bearcats were missing a large chunk of their offense from their one-point loss against New Madrid County Central the week prior.
Thanks to the steady quarterback play of senior DJ Dowdy, however, Dexter overcame a 19-point second half deficit to spoil the Bluejays homecoming, 27-26.
"That was a great win," Dowdy said. "I was pretty nervous about playing quarterback because I haven't done it in so long, but we played as a family tonight and we got it done."
Coming into the game the Bearcats planned to use both Dowdy and sophomore Ethan Stevens at quarterback as they looked to replace Pollock, who was injured against NMCC.
After using both much of the first half, Dowdy began to take control late in the second quarter before staying under center the entire second half. He finished the contest with 200 yards and two touchdowns on 18 of 34 passing while guiding the Bearcats to three unanswered scoring drives.
"DJ has a little more game experience so I thought going into the second half 'do I want to be switching guys back and forth'," Dexter head coach Justin Peden said. "We started giving DJ a run-pass option, kind of rolling him out a little bit.
"He was able to take advantage of it and had a really great second half."
Down 26-7 late in the third quarter, Dowdy, who was Dexter's starting quarterback for much of last season, connected with Jon Foels for a 24-yard touchdown to give the Bearcats some momentum.
Nine minutes remained in regulation when Carson Dean capped a 64-yard drive with a five-yard touchdown run to move Dexter within a score, 26-20.
The Bearcats looked to be running out of time when a defensive stand forced Charleston to punt with 5:18 left on the clock. Taking over at their own 37-yard line, Dexter proceed to march down the field on seven plays before facing a 4th-and-12 on the Bluejays' 13-yard line.
Running out of time on what would likely be their last offensive stand, the Bearcats burned their final timeout with 2:58 remaining to talk things over.
After the break, Dowdy took the snap and rolled to his right before finding Ethan Stevens double-covered in the right corner of the end zone for the score. Makalya Waldner connected on her third point-after to give the Bearcats their first lead of the night, 27-20.
"We were sprinting out the whole time and they were chasing out on the sprint," Stevens said of the play. "Coach said, 'Ethan we're going to run a throwback and DJ is going to roll out to the left. He's going to throw it back and you should be wide open for the touchdown.'
"Just like always Coach (Brice) Beck was right."
Charleston gave the Bearcats a scare after starting their ensuing drive on their own 32-yard line and making their way to Dexter's 19-yard line. A holding penalty brought the ball back to the 32-yard line and left the Bluejays with 2nd-and-22 with just under a minute to play.
Charleston quarterback Mike Kellum rolled to his left and sent up a deep pass that was picked off by Dexter's Michael Layton.
Layton ran the ball back down the right sideline 64 yards to Charleston's 16-yard line, where the Bearcats ran off the rest of the clock.
Part of Charleston troubles on their last drive were three penalties that all negated big Bluejay plays. On the game, Charleston was penalized 10 times for 99 yards.
"In the end (Dexter) wanted it worse than we did," Bluejays' head coach Brett Blackman said. "We made a lot of mistakes on both defense and offense. I think we had them rolling (on that last drive). Unfortunately penalties cost us a lot tonight."
Dexter out-gained Charleston 399 yards to 348 while picking up 22 first downs to the Bluejay's 14.
A week after Dowdy led the Bearcats with 170 receiving yards, it was Foels and Tim Spence bringing down over 100 yards through the air. Foels had nine catches for a game-high 117 yards while Spence had 106 yards on six catches.
In the rushing game, Carson Dean led the way with 104 yards on 16 carries.
"When things go wrong guys step up and play," Peden said. "They don't complain they just step up and do what they're suppose to do. You have to take your hat off to kids like that."
Charleston got 162 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries from Rontavious Clark while Robert Bogan carried 12 times for 46 yards and a score. As a team they collected 243 yards on the ground.
With most of those yards coming in the first half, Peden was pleased with how his defense adjusted late in the game.
"We tried to take away the edge from the Charleston running backs," Peden said. "That was the big thing. They were attacking the edge and getting their yards there.
"So we spread out a little more and tried to close that off. I think we did a good job in the second half of doing that."