Bulldogs: ‘We have our trophy back’
Published 12:40 am Saturday, November 11, 2017
Video of Bulldogs’ postgame celebration: Click here
NEDERLAND — Blaysin Fernandez played the role of the consummate quarterback.
Not only did he play big in a rivalry game, he told his teammates beforehand Nederland would beat Port Neches-Groves.
The Bulldogs did when they needed to the most.
“It’s crazy. It’s nuts,” Fernandez said after the Bulldogs stunned previously unbeaten PNG 36-35 at Bulldog Stadium in Friday night’s Bum Phillips Bowl. “I rode with my brothers all the way. I told them we were going to win it. Everybody was sleeping on me. I told them.”
Nederland (7-2, 6-2 in 22-5A) called timeout after Kevon Latulas caught his third touchdown pass from 14 yards out with 13 seconds left, but first-year head coach Monte Barrow knew all along the Bulldogs were going for two points and the win.
“There were three or four plays we worked on,” said Barrow, a former Nederland quarterback and part of the coaching staff since 1993. “We hadn’t worked on that one all year. … We told them, when we score, we were going for two.”
Fernandez, who completed 9 of 21 passes for 146 yards and three touchdowns, found Colton Beeson popping out on his route and tossed the ball to him for the winning score.
“I had to relax. My mind was going crazy,” Fernandez said when asked about staying cool in the clutch.
Said Latulas: “We had a trick up our sleeve. I don’t know what else to tell you. It worked, by the grace of God.”
For more than a minute, though, it appeared PNG (8-1, 7-1) would crash the party.
PNG quarterback Roschon Johnson engineered an 11-play, 65-yard drive in almost exactly 4 minutes, rushing for all but 10 of those yards and scoring on a 10-yard Vince Young-like keeper with 1:36 left to give the Indians their second lead of the night.
A flare even popped out of the PNG student section all the way to a row of lawn chairs on the Nederland side of the track during that drive, but that did not pause the game for an extended period of time or break PNG’s rhythm.
It sure didn’t deter the Bulldogs. Turns out, 96 seconds were all they needed to win.
Nederland had tied the game at 28-all before PNG’s go-ahead drive on Devon Simmons’ 31-yard dash, his second touchdown of the night, and Latulas’ two-point conversion run. Simmons had 180 yards on 24 carries.
That drive erased the Bulldogs’ biggest deficit of the game.
“When we were down, we couldn’t just give up and let them do whatever they do,” Simmons said. “So, we had to go back harder.”
Nederland scored on its first possession, thanks to Latulas’ 59-yard catch and run. But Johnson, who had 284 rushing yards and five touchdowns, made his first score from 2 yards out later in the opening period.
It took until 47 seconds left in the half before anyone scored again. Latulas caught a 13-yard pass off a PNG tip in the end zone, and the Indians trailed at the break for only the second time this season.
Nederland’s Landon Hiltz snatched his seventh interception of the season in his end zone as time expired in the half. That was Johnson’s second pick of the game; Beeson had the other pick to set up the Bulldogs’ previous drive.
Johnson scored from a yard out three times in the second half, and Simmons had an 8-yard scoring run to give the Bulldogs a 20-14 lead. A bad snap led to an incomplete pass on the conversion try.
“Our kids have reacted all year to situations like this,” Barrow said. “You can’t ask for nothing more than for it to come all the way down to the end of a ballgame and have it in your hands to win. Those guys did a tremendous job making plays to win.”
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I.C. Murrell: 549-8541. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews