When Fox quarterback Jude Pribish scored a touchdown on a 12-yard run, sophomore kicker Carson Kraemer missed the extra point, leaving it tied with Seckman 20-20 with 2:14 left in the fourth quarter.
When the Jaguars got the ball back, instead of trying to score a TD or field goal by the end of regulation, they played it safe and ran out the clock to go to overtime. Injuries to quarterbacks Brody Kube and Cohner Baer forced senior JJ Jablonski to shift from running back to QB.
Jablonski’s third rushing TD of the night came in overtime Sept. 25 in Imperial and lifted Seckman to a 26-20 victory over Fox. It’s the second year in a row the Jaguars (4-1) have beaten the Warriors (3-2) in OT, and extended their win streak to six against their C-6 rivals.
“We aren’t built for 80-yard drives, so we made the decision to play for OT,” Seckman head coach Nick Baer said. “I felt confident about scoring in OT and going for two points.”
The Jaguars won the coin toss going into OT, and chose to play defense first. In OT, both teams start at the 25-yard line, and both teams get at least one possession to score. Before Seckman got the ball, Fox drove inside the 10-yard line, but after a pass was dropped at the 1, the drive didn’t net any points.
“If we don’t miss the extra point, they have to play offense differently,” Fox head coach Brent Tinker said. “They were 100 percent correct in what they did. They’re built for a great OT series. It was smart of them. I thought it was brilliant.
“In OT, we dropped the ball on the 1-yard line. We were doing some good things. We have to make plays in big moments, and we did not do that. I did consider a field goal, but I thought, ‘No, we have to try and score a TD.’ Our defense did stand up several times. We had just missed a PAT, so I was unsure about going for a field goal.”
Kraemer made seven PATs against Hazelwood West and has 17 this season. Kickers miss kicks for a variety of reasons. Tinker knows that.
“Carson’s about to be one of our better kickers. He’s a weapon,” he said. “As he grows and develops, I would consider a field goal there (OT).”
Baer said after winning the toss for OT, all his defense had to do was bend, not break. That meant not allowing Fox QB Jude Pribish to finish off a drive with six points.
“Our game plan was to stop Pribish,” Baer said. “They exploited us with the pitch throughout the game, and in OT we made the adjustment and safety Jackson Rutledge came down and tackled him and right away put them behind the sticks. It looked like all 11 people were in on the last tackle. It’s what high school football is all about, playing in front of 2,500 people.”
Pattonville blanked Seckman 35-0 the week before in one of the Jaguars’ first tastes of Suburban Conference Red pool competition, and Jablonski’s first full game under center. Understandably, the offense struggled.
Not that Seckman nor Fox ever need any extra motivation to beat each other in any sport, but Baer believes the beatdown by the Pirates added fuel to his team’s fire.
“There was blood in the water coming off a 35-0 shutout against Pattonville,” Baer said. “Everybody thinks injuries have made us weak, but through strength and adversity it makes us stronger.
“(Jablonski) had a Cole Ruble-esque performance, putting the team on his back, and was everything he needed to be.”
In regulation, Jablonski had TD runs of 1 and 4 yards. Boyer Hart’s 26-yard TD run in the second quarter gve the Jags a 12-6 lead. The kicking game was spotty for both squads. Fox RB Jacob Edwards put the Warriors back on top with a 12-yard TD run 10 seconds before halftime. Kraemer’s two PATs made it 14-12. A sophomore, Edwards led Fox rushers with 201 yards.
“We think he’s going to be a special RB, and the last couple of weeks, he’s proving us right,” Tinker said. “He’s becoming a bigger part of the offense and takes pressure off of Jude.”
Jablonski and Pribish scored the two TDs in the second half. Jablonski carried the ball 41 times for 229 yards.
“We expected them to run,” Tinker said. “It was a little easier to plan for that. They are one-dimensional in the sense that they are running most of the time, but they have so many formations it still takes discipline to react to it. They stuck to their game plan very well.”
Besides Kube and Cohner, Seckman has lost six other starters to injuries. Once deep enough to platoon players on both sides of the ball, Mason Altman, Brody Mosello, Tony Fite and Hart are now playing both ways.
“We tried to keep our personnel groupings a secret so we told them they couldn’t tell their dads and girlfriends,” Nick said. “And they held their secrets. We know in these rivalry games, those little things mean a lot.”
The Jaguars make their second attempt at winning their first game in the Red pool when they host Hazelwood Central (1-4, 0-1) at 7 p.m. on Friday. Fox hosts unbeaten Parkway West (5-0, 2-0) for its homecoming at 7 on Friday. The Longhorns have shut out their last three opponents 127-0.
“They have some size and skill and a sophomore QB they like a lot,” Tinker said. “They’re going to spread it out.”