LISBON —Points were hard to come by in the regular season finale matchup of rivals Oak Hill/St. Dom’s and Lisbon.
Raiders freshman quarterback Kai Taylor threw for a touchdown and ran in another in the first half, and that was enough for Oak Hill to claim a 14-8 victory over the Greyhounds on Friday.
“It was incredible. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it,” Taylor said of his first Oak Hill-Lisbon rivalry game. “You could feel the energy on both sides — you can feel the hatred for both teams. But you have to understand how much energy was here. It was truly incredible how much we were grinding for every yard. Every inch of this game mattered.”
Running back Kaiden Delano said things didn’t always go the Raiders’ (5-3) way, and they had miscues, but they weren’t overcome by those things.
“I think what we did best is we had our lows, but we kept punching and we kept going hard,” Delano said. “It turned out in our favor.”
Meanwhile, Lisbon coach Chris Kates said errors cost the Greyhounds (2-6).
“We were very physical on both sides of the ball, but we made too many mistakes to put the ball in the end zone,” Kates said.
Taylor made the first mistake, throwing an interception to Lisbon’s Cody Osmond on the second play of the game.
“We thought we would be able to hit them on a deep pass, but Kai slipped a little bit trying to make a play,” Oak Hill/St. Dom’s coach Chad Stowell said. “He’s an extremely talented young man, but he’s still a freshman. We talked about it, but he’s really good about bouncing back.
“He bounced back big on that second drive.”
Following the interception, Lisbon mounted a 13-play, 69-yard drive. The backfield of Caleb Hayes, Emmett Mooney, and Jayden Camp, along with QB Keegan Morrissette, picked up the majority of the yards on the ground. Hayes punched it in from the 1-yard line and Mooney scored the two-point conversion to put the Greyhounds ahead 8-0 with 5:09 remaining in the first quarter.
“It’s no secret we want to run the ball and be physical up front,” Kates said. “We accomplished that, but the points didn’t come.”
Oak Hill, led by Taylor, settled down on its second possession, which began at the Raiders’ 35-yard line. Taylor ran for 10 yards, and two plays later connected with Eli Desmond for a 25-yard gain, the biggest play of the drive, that put the ball on Lisbon’s 7-yard line.
Taylor, on third-and-goal, threw a swing pass from Lisbon’s 3-yard line to PJ Smith for a touchdown to put the Raiders on the scoreboard and cut the deficit to 8-7 with 2:06 remaining in the first.
“They loaded the box and the screen was wide open,” Taylor said.
Both teams struggled with penalties and turnovers in the second quarter.
Lisbon turned it over on downs on their first possession of the second quarter. The Raiders took over near midfield and drove to the Lisbon 5, but penalties backed them up and they later turned the ball over.
“The red zone seems to be a bugaboo for us,” Stowell said. “Getting closer to the (goal line) takes away our greatest weapon on offense, and that’s our speed. It’s easier to defend the speed in the smaller area, but we executed enough and made a couple of plays.”
The Raiders got the ball back on Lisbon’s 5 after the Greyhounds fumbled the snap on fourth down. But back-to-back false start penalties brought the ball to the 15-yard line, and Oak Hill turned the ball back over on a fumble.
Lisbon advanced the ball into Oak Hill’s territory before another turnover on downs when Morrissette’s completed pass came up short on fourth-and-12.
Taylor marched the Raiders down to the goal line, hitting Smith with a 53-yard pass to Lisbon’s 11. This time, Taylor finished the drive with a QB sneak from the 1-yard line with five seconds remaining in the first half.
“We saw they were cheating; they were bringing their linebacker in,” Taylor said. “Our O-line and pulling guard, Forrest St. Laurent, has done a great job this year. Boom, counter; I knew I had to get it.”
Both defenses kept the opposing offense from reaching the end zone in the third period.
The Greyhounds were plagued with false starts throughout the quarter.
“What killed us was the unforced stuff, the false starts, and things like that on critical downs,” Kates said.
Oak Hill had a chance to put the game out of reach midway through the fourth quarter. Taylor completed a short pass to Desmond on fourth down to keep the drive alive, and Delano kept the clock moving with key rushes. But the Raiders failed to convert a fake field goal from Lisbon’s 8-yard line with 6:20 remaining.
“Kaiden Delano was an absolute workhorse, and we were short with some guys at his positions,” Stowell said. “He had to play a lot and he played great.”
The Greyhounds marched to midfield, with Mooney taking most of the carries. But the drive ended at midfield when Mooney was stopped on fourth-and-4 with 2:08 remaining in the game.
When Lisbon got the ball 92 yards from the end zone with 6:21 remaining Kates knew that was going to be the Greyhounds’ final drive, no matter what happened.
“Obviously, the clock is moving and we had the ball in a situation we wanted it in,” Kates said. “We just couldn’t close it.”
Oak Hill picked up a first down on the ensuing drive and then ran out the remainder of the clock.
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