Cheney loses in two overtimes to Clarkston, 20-13

Missed opportunities and lack of a break or two last Friday night at Clarkston may have cost the Cheney football team its clear path to the playoffs, but it hasn’t left them out of the end of the season cold just yet.

The Blackhawks rallied from a 13-point first half deficit to tie the game with the league-leading Bantams, and had a chance to win it in regulation. In the end, after Clarkston scored a touchdown in the second overtime period, Cheney came up a fourth-down conversion short in the 20-13 loss.

“We had our opportunities,” head coach Bobby Byrd. “But hats off to Clarkston. They took advantage of our not executing.”

Clarkston grabbed a 13-0 first-half lead on a pair of AJ Davis to Trevor Sperry touchdown passes, one in the first quarter of 28 yards and the second of 10 yards in the second quarter, missing the point after try. Cheney had three scoring opportunities on field goal tries of 30-35 yards but couldn’t convert.

In the third quarter the Blackhawks began rolling, capping a drive with Austin Kline’s 2-yard TD run to cut Clarkston’s lead to 13-7. Cheney drove again in the fourth quarter to tie the game on Kline’s second TD run of the night, only to have the PAT blocked.

The Blackhawks had a shot at the win in regulation, driving down to the Clarkston 20 yard line with nine seconds remaining, but again, the field goal attempt was blocked.

Neither team scored in the first overtime, with Cheney recovering a Clarkston fumble to end the Bantams’ series. Clarkston got the ball first in the second overtime period, and took a 20-13 lead when Davis again hit Sperry on a 25-yard fade route to the corner of the end zone.

Cheney’s final series came down to a fourth and 14 play in which the Bantams were called for pass interference in the end zone. But instead of receiving a new set of downs and the ball half the distance to the goal, Cheney was awarded a fourth and 4 at Clarkston’s 15, coming up inches short on a fourth down run to end the game.

Cheney falls to fourth place in the Great Northern League at 1-2, 5-3 overall. The Blackhawks still have playoff hopes if they can knock of last-place Pullman (1-2, 3-5) this Friday and second-place West Valley (2-1, 5-3) can upset Clarkston (2-1, 7-1).

That would give Cheney, West Valley and East Valley (2-2, 3-5) each 2-2 records and kick in other playoff tiebreakers as all three have beat each other, Cheney beating East Valley, East Valley beating West Valley and West Valley beating Cheney.

Right now, those scenarios don’t concern Byrd and the Blackhawks.

“Pullman is our number one priority,” he said. “All we can do is beat Pullman and hope for the playoff scenarios to work out.”

Last year the Greyhounds rallied from a 26-14 deficit to score a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns and beat Cheney 29-26 in a game played at Eastern Washington University’s Roos Field.

Pullman quarterback Mason Petrino tossed those TD passes, and he returns to lead a Greyhounds team that, like many others the Blackhawks have seen recently, spreads the field offensively in both the passing and running game. Defensively, Byrd expects Pullman to put most of its 11 players within 8-10 yards of the line of scrimmage to stop the Blackhawks running game.

“It’ll be a good test for us,” Byrd said. “We’d like to pull off the ‘W,’ and see what playoff scenario comes up.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].