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Lowell pulls out big win over Griffith
Updated: September 12, 2011 7:06PM
LOWELL — With a steady rain pouring down all evening and the field slowly turning into a small swamp, there was never any doubt this one wasn’t going to be pretty.
This game was going to be decied by the team that could gut it out and by the team could take advantage of a bit of good fortune.
Lowell edged Griffith in both departments Friday, winning 18-13.
It was a victory the Red Devils are happy to have and happy to sleep on.
They got their big break when Jeremy Crocker found Tyler Hamm on a halfback option for a 15-yard touchdown pass with 2.8 seconds left in the first half.
It wasn’t the way that Lowell coach Keith Kilmer drew up the play. Crocker took a pitch from Bryan Thomas and felt the heat from a heavy Griffith rush right away.
He had explicit instructions to throw it away if the play wasn’t open.
It wasn’t and he did try to throw it away. It was so wet and so sloppy that he actually underthrew the pass, and it looked like either an incompletion or an interception.
The ball was tipped by a Griffith defender right into the hands of Hamm. That turned out to be the winning TD for the Red Devils.
“It’s nice to have the breaks go our way,” Lowell coach Keith Kilmer said.
Lowell running back Nick Hamilton had a bird’s-eye view of the play from the sidelines. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
“That was amazing,” Hamilton said. “He (Hamm) was right there.”
Said Kilmer: “He played to the whistle.”
The win, the second straight for Lowell, was a relief for Kilmer and the team. They have struggled with turnovers. They had 11 in the first three games. They finished with two, not bad considering the conditions.
“These guys play hard and with a lot of heart,” Kilmer said. “We’re working on the smart part.”
The drive, which was 91 yards and 16 plays, turned out to be a back-breaker for the Panthers, who were almost as tough as the Red Devils. They just didn’t have enough firepower offensively to get over the hump.
Lowell started the scoring when Nick Kijurna caught a 68-yard pass from Bryan Thomas with 5:30 left in the first quarter.
The Red Devils added another score when Hamilton pulled the ball out of a pile and rumbled 68 yards on a fumble recovery for a touchdown with 3:03 left in the first quarter.
Lowell had its biggest defensive stop of the half when it dropped Austin Brown at about six inches from the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the 2.
Brown set up the near score with a 60-yard run.
The Panthers got on the board on their next drive when Brown found Troy Yarnelle for a 26-yard touchdown pass with 9:15 left in the half.
The Red Devils stopped another Griffith drive late in the half at the 9.
Both teams had trouble hanging on to the ball, with Lowell losing one fumble and Griffith losing one.
Griffith scored one more time after Brown intercepted a pass. That set up an 8-yard touchdown run by Brett Brinkley.
The Panthers had one last chance to score, getting the ball back with 22 seconds left and no timeouts left at the 20. But they couldn’t convert.
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