Frank Speziale Photo
NORWICH – The last 12 seconds of Friday night’s game felt like an eterinty for head coach Mike Chrystie and the rest of the Norwich Purple Tornado football team.
Maybe because there were two more plays after the horn sounded.
On second-and-10, Maine-Endwell’s quarterback Frank Meyer tried to throw, but Norwich’s Ty Rifanburg intercepted it and ran down the right sideline before being tackled with no time left. However, there was a flag on the play and officials ruled defensive pass interference on the play.
With a game not being able to end on a defensive penalty, the Spartans had another shot from the Tornado 15 yardline.
Meyer got off a pass as he was being brought down by three Norwich defenders but the ball was considered a fumble, as the ball did not go past the line of scrimmage and an ineverted whistle seemed to stop all players. Spartans Brendon Bocinski picked up the ball and started running toward his end-zone. Rifanburg tackled him short of the touchdown (at the four yardline) but another flag was thrown; this one, apparently, for unnecessary roughness.
The final snap of the game came from Norwich’s 8-yard line when Meyer ran the option right and pitched the ball back to his running back Josh Chandler, who was stopped four yards short of the goal line when Zach Mills threw himself in front of Chandler.
Norwich fans celebrated loud enough, homeowners two blocks away from the school heard the crowd.
“Stop ‘em,” Chrystie said on what was going through his mind on the last play. “Like a say every week, this group fights through adversity like no other team I’ve ever been a part of and they just believe in each other, no matter the situation.”
Starting their first drive with two offensive penalties, Norwich pushed themselves back 10 yards. But Purple Tornado running back Drew Walsh erased those yards by running for a 34 yard gain on first-and-20. One play later, Norwich’s Eric Conant ran outside to the left and took it to the end-zone, giving Norwich the 6-0 lead after only 38 seconds ticked off the clock. Kicker Mike Trevisani came on and added the extra point, making it 7-0.
After forcing Maine-Endwell to punt because of a three-and-out, Walsh took the first hand-off of the next drive 64 yards and the score, putting Norwich up 14-0 with 9:43 left in the first quarter.
Norwich gained 132 yards on its first three plays from scrimmage.
“We talked all week about getting out on top early,” said Chrystie on jumping out to the early 14-0 lead. “We did not want to give them any momentum. We talked about with standing the first quarter and we did, fighting the entire game.”
The next points that came from the foot of Trevisani as he nailed a 34-yard field goal straight through the uprights with 9:49 left in the second quarter. At that point, it looked like Norwich was going to take the 17-0 lead into the locker room at the intermission.
With the Purple dropped back in coverage to prevent the deep ball, the Spartans Chandler took off, with a big gap in the middle of the field, for 48 yards. Chandler then received a pitch from Meyer and quickly threw the ball to Rylie VanFleet. Covered by three Norwich defensive players, VanFleet came down with the ball, scoring with no time left on the clock. Meyer tacked on the two-point run, leaving the Spartans trailing 17-8 at the half.
A defensive battle ensued for the next 20:16 minutes of play. Norwich came up with three fumble recoveries by Rifanburg, Wes Mills and Brennan Slater but was unable to capitalize offensively on any of the three.
