By Angela Watts
Content Editor
The reactions by the West Springfield and Centreville players at the end of Friday’s Northern Region Division 6 quarterfinal were vastly different. While the Spartans jumped and hugged each other exuberantly, tearing off their helmets and waving them high above their head in celebration, many of the Wildcats simply crumbled to their knees in the exact spot they stood when the final buzzer sounded, holding their helmet in their hands.
As different as the two scenes were, it’s fair to say the emotion felt by everyone was the same: Shock.
No. 4 West Springfield, the fourth seed in the Division 6 playoffs, trailed fifth-seeded and No. 10 Centreville for nearly the entire second half Friday night, including being down by as many as 12 points with less than five minutes remaining. But the Spartans scored on an improbable, 73-yard touchdown by junior quarterback Bryn Renner on a play that started with him scrambling to avoid a sack. West Springfield then came up with two turnovers and a second touchdown a mere :23 seconds after Renner’s run to seal a dramatic, come-from-behind, 30-27 victory.
“We kept fighting until we made plays, and that’s the mark of a championship team,” Coach Bill Renner told his players, which will host Robinson (6-5) in next week’s semifinal round after the seventh-seeed Rams upset second-seed Chantilly, 17-14. “Learn from this: Never, ever, ever in your life quit until the last possible second.”
West Springfield (9-2) held a slim, 9-6 lead at half time on Friday, the first truly frigid night of the high school season. But the Spartans were unable to even slow powerful Centreville senior fullback Andrew Morgan (6-feet, 235 pounds), who rushed for 120 yards in the first half and 122 more in the second. And Morgan’s rushing, coupled with creative play at the quarterback position that rotated strong-armed junior David Toth (6-5, 240) with elusive senior P.J. Dunegan (6-0, 180) in-and-out of the lineup, had West Springfield both flustered and exhausted.
The Spartans’ defense, which was also hurt by two Bryn Renner turnovers on back-to-back possessions in the third quarter, had been on the field for more than 14 of the 19 minutes that had passed in the second half when the Wildcats (6-5) scored on a 2-yard run by Morgan, his second of the game, to take a 27-15 with 4 minutes, 45 seconds to play.
That, though, is when the tide — and all of the momentum — turned.
On West Springfield’s first play following Morgan’s short touchdown run, Renner dropped back to pass. Finding no open receivers he took off scrambling around left end.
“I thought I was going to go out of bounds,” Renner said. “And then I saw that [senior wide receiver] Josh [Vallejos] had the block and I was like, ‘Dang, the whole sideline is wide open.’ It was just a freak play.”
Renner (19-of-27 passing for 264 yards, three TDs and two INTs) raced 73 yards untouched up the far sideline, pulling the Spartans within 27-22 with 4:23 remaining. A subsequent Wildcat fumble on their next play from scrimmage was recovered by West Springfield at the Centreville 22-yard line.
“It’s all so hard to describe,” Bill Renner said. “But we said all week that you win in the playoffs when people make plays. And our offense and defense, when we needed them to, made the plays that mattered.”
Three plays and just :23 seconds after recovering the fumble the Spartans were in the end zone again, this time when Bryn Renner fired a pass to junior wide receiver Andy Stallings, who made a spectacular, acrobatic catch between two Wildcat defenders at the 2-yard line and forced his way into the end zone.
“It’s unbelievable to come back and just win it like that,” Stallings said. “We were starting to get down on the sideline, but after Bryn’s run when the defense got that turnover … that was huge. I knew then that we had to take advantage of it. I’m not even sure if [the pass] was thrown to me, but i just went up and got the ball.”
Because West Springfield scored so quickly there was still 4:00 remaining when Centreville took over at 1st-and-10 from its own 20-yard line, but a promising Wildcat drive that had moved them into Spartan territory ended when West Springfield senior defensive back Tim Baldwin went up alongside Centreville senior wide receiver Richie Staggers and not only tipped away a pass by Dunegan but then dove to intercept his own tipped ball with 1:20 left.
“It was an exciting game,” Centreville Coach Gerry Pannoni said. “We’d love to be on the winning end of it, but not tonight. We played with a lot of heart and a lot of character. We played our butts off, and that’s all you can ask for from kids is to go out there and give it their best.”
** Go to http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=dsmvp&gallery_id=903982 to see a full photo gallery taken by professional photographer Jesse Neider.
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