Pennsville rallies, battles in fourth quarter, but loses a close one

Eagles fall to Overbrook 28-26 when last-minute conversion attempt falls short

PENNSVILLE – The home team made play after play in the fourth quarter – on both sides of the ball – to keep itself in the game. It needed to make one more play on offense in the final minute to extend the game, but just came up a little short.

Jake Layfield’s potential game-tying two-point conversion pass with 47.9 seconds to play Thursday night fell incomplete in the end zone, sending Pennsville to a 28-26 loss to Overbrook in their WJFL Diamond Division opener instead of a chance to win in overtime for the second week in a row.

It was the second year in a row the Overbrook-Pennsville game was decided by two points or less.

“I’ve been doing this now long enough where it’s going to suck no matter what,” Eagles coach Mike Healy said. “It goes that way sometimes and you’ve gotta understand it’s a tough loss, but I have more confidence in this team now, and they should feel more confident with the way they been playing, fighting back.

“Sometimes plays are gonna go your way, sometimes they’re not. It’s frustrating, but I think the big thing for us is to not put ourselves in a hole where we have to depend on one play.”

The Eagles fell behind 16-0 midway through the second quarter after the second of Axcel Bailey’s three Overbrook touchdowns, but once they got their bearings they gave themselves every chance to change the outcome.

They put together a 17-play drive in the second quarter to score their first touchdown right before the half. They turned the Rams back twice from inside the 10 – once after they had reached the 1 – to keep it a two-point game. Then in the fourth quarter, when there were four touchdowns in the final 4:39, they twice turned away the Rams’ two-point conversions to keep it a one-score game. Of course, they didn’t make either of their conversions, either.

“We’ve played Pennsville now for 7-8 years and it’s been a battle every year,” Overbrook coach Frank Wilczynski said. “I said to the guys at halftime it’s going to be a battle of attrition. We were lucky to make the last play tonight. That takes some years off you.”

The Eagles moved into position to tie the game when Layfield connected with C.J. Johnson on a 34-yard touchdown pass on fourth down. It was one of six fourth-down conversions they made in the game. On the two-point try to tie, Layfield rolled out and was looking for his options in the end zone, but his pass fell in a void between Tristan Horner and Aiden Collazo. The Rams recovered the short ensuing kickoff and took a knee twice to run out the clock.

“We liked the play, we ran the play,” Healy said. “It’s a play we feel confident in running. We feel confident with that at any point. We’ve had a lot of success with it, it’s just that we didn’t execute that time and get the play done. We ran it earlier in the game. We’ve run it already this season. We like the play, it’s just that time we just didn’t execute it and it was an incomplete pass.”

“It was a pocket pass,” Layfield said. “I was looking for a quick five-and-out, which I’ve hit a lot in the game, but it wasn’t there, so I started to roll with it, hoping something would pop open like it did last time. I saw my guy in the back of the end zone and I just led him too far. That’s one of the ones I need to hit like that. That’s detrimental. That needs to be a better throw. I just missed him.”

“I thought we did a good job on that play of really stringing it out,” Wilczynski said. “They did a good job with their ball-handling in the backfield on the (touchdown) play before. Our defensive end comes unblocked but the quarterback gives a good fake and gets outside and beats the leverage. On that (conversion) one we were able to flush him and the defensive backs did their jobs and didn’t give him an opportunity to complete the pass.”

Layfield completed 27 of 43 passes for 268 yards in the game with three touchdowns and two interceptions on batted balls – three picks if you count the one on an conversion attempt – but lamented missing a number of throws. Johnson caught eight passes for 117 yards. Lucas Thomas and Collazo caught seven and six, respectively.

Pennsville’s decision to keep going for two wasn’t due to any misgivings they had about a kicker. It was simply their answer to Overbrook’s approach to go for two in order to keep matching scores. Extra points do no good when the other team keeps going for two.

The Rams appeared to have delivered the knockout blow several times in the fourth quarter, but every time the Eagles answered.

The first came with 4:39 left when Andrew Powell blocked a Pennsville punt and Xyon Marshall fell on it in the end zone for a touchdown, but Pennsville stopped Axcel Bailey on the two-point try to keep it an eight-point game.

Danny Knight got the Eagles right back in it when he returned the kickoff 75 yards to the Overbrook 15 and Horner eventually got into the end zone from 4 to make it 22-20 with 2:37 to play. The Rams intercepted the conversion pass to maintain the lead.

It surely should’ve been over when Rams star running back Axcel Bailey went 56 yards up the left sideline for his third touchdown of the game, making it 28-20 with 2:16 left. But the Eagles still had a chance after Jacob Kimani blew up the conversion attempt to give them one last chance to tie. Bailey finished the game with 153 yards rushing on 26 carries, but outside of the big fourth-quarter run, he had only 14 other yards rushing in the second half.

“It’s two straight weeks starting slow,” Healy said. “We need to understand when the game starts we don’t have time for that lull. Last week we put ourselves in a hole (14-0 in the second quarter), we were able to come back. This week we put ourselves in a hole, we fight back and do a good job, but we put ourselves in that hole to start. The one thing I’m really happy about is the last two weeks we played hard to the end of the game, but we make things difficult on ourselves.”

Overbrook 28, Pennsville 26

SCORING SUMMARY
O-Axcel Bailey 4 run (Andrew Gattuso run), 5:21 1Q
O-Axcel Bailey 1 run (Nicholas Duvall pass from Mark Hailstork), 5:38 2Q
P-Lucas Thomas 6 pass from Jake Layfield (Danny Knight pass from Jake Layfield), 0:30 2Q
P-CJ Johnson 6 pass from Jake Layfield (run failed), 5:07 3Q
O-Xyon Marshall recovered blocked punt in end zone (run failed), 4:39 4Q
P-Tristan Horner 4 run (pass failed), 2:37 4Q
O-Axcel Bailey 56 run (run failed), 2:16 4Q
P-CJ Johnson 34 pass from Jake Layfield (pass failed), 0:48