The Rattlers held off the Rockdale Tigers’ charge Friday night, winning 21-14 in a key District 24-3A at Tiger Stadium to maintain a share of the league lead with Cameron Yoe at 3-0.
“Navasota is a great football team,” Rockdale coach Jeff Miller said. “We just never created that big break that you have to have when you play somebody that’s better than you.”
But the Tigers almost did.
Rockdale (6-2 overall, 2-2 in 24-3A) trailed 21-7 late in the third and faced a fourth-and-8 on Navasota’s 28-yard line. Needing a spark, Miller opted to go for the first down.
Quarterback Mark Drake got protection in the pocket and hit receiver Joe Sanders in stride at the 4 to set up first-and-goal as the quarter ended. Two plays into the fourth, Drake ran it in from a yard out to cut the lead to 21-14.
The Tigers forced a three-and-out and got the ball back on their 38, but their drive stalled at midfield and they punted with 5:56 to go.
And that’s when things got interesting for the Tigers. Sanders’ punt put the Rattlers at their 8, and on first down quarterback Jacolby Stokes tried to pass out of the jam.
Instead the ball found the hands of Rockdale’s Terral Dixon at the 37. Dixon made some outstanding moves to run the ball to inside the 10, but as he tried for one last dive to cap the runback he found trouble as the Rattlers forced and recovered a fumble at the 6.
“The kid was giving a great effort and a great return,” Miller said. “He did a good job coming off the route and making a great pick. I’ll take that effort everyday. That’s a sophomore kid playing really well for us and I can’t fault him at all for that.”
This time the Rattlers (6-0) of former Rogers coach Lee Fedora were taking no chances, and they went primarily to the run to try to kill the final 5:50.
They finally stalled at midfield and punted with 56 seconds left, giving the Tigers the ball at their 13 with no timeouts.
The game ended when Drake threw an interception on fourth down, and the Rattlers needed one snap to run out the clock.
“It was just a great football game,” said Fedora, who saw his team survive a two-point try last week to beat Caldwell 28-27. “It was great back-and-forth action and I thought Rockdale did a great job. But we got another win and we are 6-0, and that’s the main thing for us.”
Still, the Tigers were left wondering what might have been. The lost interception was just one key play that had a big impact on the outcome.
Perhaps the biggest of those plays was the opening kickoff. Three Rockdale players failed to cleanly field Navasota’s short kick and finally the Rattlers jumped on it at the 10.
Three plays later, Stokes hit Louisiana State commitment Dexter Pratt, who was limited to 96 yards rushing, on a shovel pass and the Rattlers had an 11-yard score just one minute into the game.
“I think that affected us the whole first quarter,” Miller said. “We give them like 9 yards to go for the opening touchdown then we go three-and-out on our first drive and they score again. We pouted about it the whole first quarter, then kind of got over it and played really well from then on.”
The Tigers will travel to Caldwell next week, and Miller knows his team has its back against the wall.
“We just have to beat Caldwell and hope we get some help,” Miller said.
mhood@temple-telegram.com
