Streak breaker
- Updated: August 27, 2022
Hopper-to-Horton with 1:16 to play helps Cherokee County beat No. 1 Piedmont for first time since 2009
By Shannon Fagan
Special to East Alabama Sports Today
CENTRE – Cherokee County quarterback Cade Hopper had a game to forget at Piedmont a year ago. He threw three costly interceptions in the Warriors’ 27-point loss.
Warriors coach Jacob Kelley said Hopper took that loss hard. From that point, he committed himself to improving his game. On Friday night at Warrior Stadium, the senior signal caller redeemed himself.
Hopper was pretty much pinpoint on his passes Friday night against the defending Class 3A state champions. He connected on his first six passes and finished 14-of-17 for the game for 176 yards, including the game-winning 50-yard touchdown to senior receiver Malachi Horton with
1:16 remaining, to lift the Warriors to a 21-14 upset victory.
The win halted Piedmont’s 10-game unbeaten streak over the Warriors. The last time the Warriors (2-0) defeated their Highway 9 rivals was 2009, when both teams went on to win their respective class state championships. The win also evened the series at 38-38-3.
“There was like two minutes left on the clock, and I’m just trying to look for guys open,” Hopper said. “I’m not trying to force it downfield, force a pick or anything. I just saw Malachi make a little move. He was sitting in the middle of coverage. The linebacker got off of him a little bit and I hit him. The rest, he just made a play. He’s a great ball player, and he took it to the house.”
“How about Cade Hopper coming in and just slipping daggers in?” Kelley said. “This game last year, that kid threw three interceptions. He took it hard. He improved and came out here tonight, just did his job and drove us all the way down the field. He made the plays we needed him to make in the passing game to mix with the run.”
Both Hopper and Kelley said they installed the game-winning touchdown play on Thursday.
“We’ve always had that play, but Malachi would go the other way,” Hopper said. “We saw some things on film. We told him to come inside.”
But Hopper knew there was still time on the clock for his senior counterpart, Jack Hayes, to make a comeback for the Bulldogs (0-1). It wasn’t until sophomore defensive back Tristan Brown’s interception of Hayes near midfield with 51.4 seconds to go that the Warriors could
celebrate.
Three Hopper kneel downs and the streak was finally over.
Horton said the Warrior win was “a long time coming.”
“When (Brown) made that interception, my heart just dropped,” said Horton, who caught five passes for 73 yards and a touchdown. “It’s my senior year. I had one more chance at beating Piedmont. They’re always a powerhouse. We came out and executed and did what we had to do, and we beat Piedmont. It just feels good. Thirteen years is too long, you know? I’m just glad to be in a good position to put my team in a winning situation … Being gritty led us to victory.”
As Horton said, the Warriors started off slow. Piedmont held a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter on Hayes’ 1-yard touchdown run. The Bulldogs appeared as if they may add to their lead midway through the second quarter, but a Sloan Smith 50-yard field goal attempt was no
good.
Following the missed field goal, the Warriors began getting in gear. They marched 80 yards in 11 plays, capped off by a 1-yard Jack Amos run from what Kelley calls the Warriors’ heavy package. Will Frampton’s extra point gave the Warriors a 7-6 lead at halftime.
Amos, who had five carries for 38 yards, scored another touchdown early in the fourth quarter on a 3-yard run. He lost the ball in the end zone, but an official ruled he crossed the plane before the it was lodged loose.
Prior to Amos’s game-tying touchdown, the Bulldogs had regained the lead and momentum on a Jacob Cornejo fumble that was stripped and recovered by Bulldog senior linebacker Jake Austin, who returned it 62 yards for a touchdown. Rollie Pinto ran in for the ensuing 2-point conversion to give the Bulldogs a 14-7 advantage with just under five minutes remaining in the third quarter.
“It was a great play on his part stripping it and running it back,” Piedmont coach Steve Smith said. “We had a lot of momentum right there, but we needed to go out there and get a stop after that. We had them backed up inside their own 5, and they wound up converting that, taking it on down the field and scoring on that drive. That was huge there.”
After the Warriors tied the game at 14 on Amos’s second touchdown, Hayes drove Piedmont methodically down the field to the Warrior 17. However, the drive began to stall, bringing up fourth-and-1. Hayes hit senior receiver Max Hanson on a busted play in the end zone, but the Bulldogs had an ineligible man downfield to nullify the score.
The penalty backed the Bulldogs into fourth-and-6 at the 22. Coach Smith called on Sloan Smith for a 38-yard field goal, but the knuckleball kick was no good with 2:40 to go in the game.
“We just failed to finish it off,” Coach Smith said of the drive. “We’ve got to finish it off right there on a fourth-and-1. We had kind of a busted play there, then had the penalty for an ineligible down field. It’s just one of those things.”
That set the stage for the Hopper-to-Horton game-winning score.
“We didn’t play well enough to win tonight, and Cherokee County played with a lot of intensity, a lot of passion. They made the plays they needed to make to win. Give them credit for that,” Steve Smith said. “I thought they come out and out-did us tonight. I thought they played well
enough to win and we didn’t.”
Shannon Fagan is Sports Director at WEIS Radio
You must be logged in to post a comment Login