WEST POINT — Oak Hill Academy will live through this.
Oak Hill’s football team has already made it through one loss, in the season opener against Newton County Academy, just to reel off five-straight wins after it. It found a way through something much tougher: the tragic death of player Thomas Lee Bales in August.
It will also survive Friday night’s 16-7 loss to Central Holmes Christian, but it’s no easy task. The loss cost Oak Hill (5-2) a shot at the outright Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class AA, District 1 championship, but as coach Chris Craven told the team after, all is not lost.
After next week’s game against West Memphis Christian, Oak Hill ends the regular season at district foe Marshall Academy, where it could hand the Patriots its only district loss.
“That’s what we have to focus on, that’s what we have to look at. All hope is not gone,” Craven said. “We didn’t play our best game, there are no excuses. We played a lot better in some of the games in our winning streak. What you tell them is you still have the rest of the season.”
Craven’s way of getting his team to do so is simple: “Just get back to work.” It’s exactly what he had the team do after the Newton County loss to start the winning streak. He doesn’t think starting another one will take drastic measures, just a simple return to playing the way Oak Hill was during the streak.
In that sense, Friday was quite the uncharacteristic outing for Oak Hill. The Raiders’ seven points dropped off from 30 points per game during the streak; 199 yards of total offense and eight penalties for 50 yards kept Oak Hill from finding a touchdown beyond Riley Tate’s 55-yard punt return for a touchdown in the first quarter.
Granted, some of those numbers are rooted in simply not possession the ball. Central Holmes Christian’s possession offense held the ball in a move coach Billy Bell did not deny was all about protecting the lead. Central Holmes Christian converted a two-point attempt to go up 8-7 at halftime and a 50-yard touchdown pass to get up 16-7 in the final minutes of the third quarter.
“After we scored, threw the pass and got the lead, the linemen were fired up and we just figured we’re going to win or lose it running the football,” Bell said. “We’re up by nine and they have to score twice. I told them, ‘We’ve thrown it for the last time.'”
Bell wasn’t kidding: even not including the quarterback kneels to run out the final minute, 12 of Central Holmes’ final 13 plays were runs. Even factoring out an 83-yard run, Central Holmes still averaged over four yards per carry in that stretch.
That was also uncharacteristic for an Oak Hill defense that pitched three shutouts in the five-game winning streak and only allowed more than eight points once in that stretch.
“Us not making tackles. If you can run the ball up the middle, that means a defensive lineman and a middle linebacker probably did not do their job, and film will let us know,” Craven said. “At the same time, we’re not going to take anything away from their effort.”
While Central Holmes was trying to end the game, the players took it to a new level of intensity. The teams combined for three personal fouls, all of them dead ball fouls, and chippy play ensued. At one point in the third quarter the officials brought the teams together on the field to calm the matter down. Both coaches thought their teams responded to it well.
Oak Hill didn’t exhaust its figurative fight in the literal fight. The Raiders’ first possession of the second half, fresh off of Central Holmes taking an 8-7 lead, Oak Hill went on a 10-play drive that ended in scoring position with a turnover on downs. Oak Hill created another shot at scoring in the final minutes, driving down to the red zone before a fumble gave Central Holmes the ball for the final time.
It is the same kind of fight that Craven will ask for going forward.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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