By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Carthage’s fortunes swung dramatically in the final minutes of Friday’s marquee matchup against visiting Republic.
After trailing 21-0 in the first half, the Class 5 No. 4 Tigers pulled within 28-27 with 2:17 left in the fourth quarter but were stopped short on a two-point try for the lead and couldn’t recover the ensuing onside kick.
But Carthage forced a quick punt to get the ball back at its own 15 and then after a wild final drive that saw the Tigers spike the ball at the Republic 8-yard line with 1 second remaining, Carthage junior Malachi Dougless booted a 25-yard field goal to seal a 30-28 victory.
“It was a battle of resiliency,” Carthage coach Jon Guidie said. “I thought both teams did a great job staying in the fight. Both teams answered every single challenge. We were able to make one more play than they did tonight. I’m really proud of our guys.”
“We got beat,” Republic coach Ryan Cornelsen said. “We didn’t make enough plays, they did. It came down to the wire and they made the last play. We got beat. It’s a tough loss, you’ve got to get better. We had our chances to put it away and we didn’t so that’s on us.”
It seemed to be Republic’s game to lose for most of the night. The visitors, ranked one spot behind Carthage in Class 5 but holding the top seed in the District 6 standings, scored touchdowns on 3 of 4 possessions to start the game, and were stopped short on a 4th-and-goal from the 1 when they didn’t score.
Senior quarterback Preston McCracken scored on a 69-yard run on the third play from scrimmage and added a 34-yard touchdown run and another 6-yard score to stake Republic to a 21-0 lead with 8:29 left in the second quarter.
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Carthage, which turned it over on downs at the Republic 18 on its first possession, didn’t get on the scoreboard until senior quarterback Zane Browning punched it in from the goal line with 2:26 left before halftime.
Tate Nichols returned the opening kick of the second half to the Republic 14 to set up a 1-yard touchdown plunge by Carthage’s Landon West at the 11:14 mark. That cut it to a touchdown, and the Tigers drove to the Republic 20 on their next possession before turning it over on downs with an incomplete pass to the end zone.
“We learned from last week,” Guidie said. “Last week we went into halftime really down and really flat. We were 7-7 at half with Joplin and our kids acted like the world was over and we got them going a little bit. We learned from that last week and reminded them of that and we came out, Tate hit a huge return there to get us going and we punched it in on a short field. Gave ourselves some confidence right out of the half that carried over through the second half.”
Republic’s offense, meanwhile, couldn’t get anything going in the third quarter. The visiting Tigers went 3-and-out and punted their only two possessions, and then Carthage ate more than 6 minutes from the clock with a scoring drive to tie it at 21 with 8:48 left in the game after a 1-yard Browning score and Dougless’ extra point.
The visitors finally answered––Republic covered 74 yards in barely 2 minutes thanks to a 46-yard McCracken run and the quarterback kept it from the 5 for his fourth touchdown of the night to put his team up 28-21 with 6:32 remaining.
But Carthage came back with another time-consuming drive. On 3rd-and-6, Nichols caught a 23-yard pass and a personal foul moved the ball to the Republic 27. Browning passed again and this time West made a great catch for 19 yards. Two plays later, Browning scored from the 3 to cut it to 28-27.
Republic jumped offsides on the extra point, moving the ball halfway closer to the goal line, so Carthage sent its offense back on the field to go for the lead. Browning was stopped short on the 2-point attempt.
After the onside kick, Republic got the ball inside the 50 but couldn’t get anything going on the ground and punted. Thanks to Carthage’s timeouts, they got the ball back just 58 seconds after the touchdown but then had to navigate 85 yards with 1:19 remaining, and Republic defenders Grayson Hart and Ethan Montiel sacked Browning on first down to back the ball up to the 11.
Browning completed a 24-yard pass to Dougless and a 16-yard pass to Jett Dalton. Another 16-yard completion was called back for an illegal shift, putting Carthage back on its side of the 50. After an incompletion, Browning passed for 30 yards to a tightly-covered Nichols on a controversial play where Republic’s Keiran Govan appeared to end up with the ball; officials deemed it simultaneous possession and Carthage kept it. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Republic after the play moved the ball to the 12 with 19 seconds on the clock.
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Browning ran it for 4 yards and then Carthage scrambled to get set so Browning could spike the ball with barely enough time.
Out came Dougless to kick the game winner and leave Republic stunned.
“Awesome, man,” Guidie said of his kicker. “We practiced that exact scenario yesterday in practice and he missed two of them. We were a little concerned there but how ironic was it that we actually did it tonight and he nailed it. Just a great job by him and a great job by our receivers and quarterback to get us down into that position right there.”
Cornelsen said Carthage “played harder than we played and executed well and we didn’t. That’s what happens. You can’t just try to hold onto a lead, you’ve got to keep playing and I feel like we started trying to hold onto a lead and didn’t play very well.”
“We’ll look at it like we do every game, try to be better for it,” he said. “Obviously it’s a heartbreaker, it’s a tough one but you’ve got to keep moving and getting better and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
McCracken rushed for 233 yards and 4 touchdowns and Izaiah Hull added 63 yards on the ground for Republic.
Browning rushed for 81 yards and 3 scores for Carthage and West added 157 yards and 1 touchdown. Browning completed 14 of 21 passes for 206 yards. Nichols had 6 catches for 107 to pace the receivers.
With the win, Carthage (6-1) jumps over Republic (5-2) for the top seed in the district standings with two weeks of the regular season remaining.
