The Chandler Lions put together scoring drives on their final two possessions and emerged with an 18-16 district win over Crossings Christian Friday night.
The Lions had spent much of the game walking backwards while the officials stepped off penalties, but synchronized their offense when it counted and evened their record at 2-2 going into this week’s game with Jones.
“Psychologically, getting the win is big,” said Chandler coach Jack Gray. “The goal is to win a district championship and you have to win them any way you can. It wasn’t pretty tonight.
“We just weren’t hooking up in the first half. We had some guys beat and dropped passes. We had two touchdown passes we dropped in the first half, and then penalties just kept setting us back in the second quarter.
“We were 1st-and-20, 1st-and-30, 2nd-and-25, so we were having to throw and never really established a running game.”
Chandler got up 6-0 late in the first quarter when Kaden Jones ran six yards for a touchdown. The conversion failed, and Crossings moved ahead 7-6 on a 39-yard touchdown pass to Mason Snyder in the second quarter and added a field goal just before the half to make it 10-6.
Snyder scored again on a 21-yard reverse in the third quarter, putting Crossings ahead 16-6.
Chandler got a score on a pass from Jones to Drake Rodriguez with 5:21 left to play and then stopped the Knights on downs with 3:41 to play to set up what proved to be the determining score.
Chandler took over on its own 37 and Jones found Dalton Fowble along the right sideline to the Crossings 36.
Chandler picked up a first down when Jones ran to the Crossings 21 with 2:47, but picked up only a yard on the next three plays and faced a 4th-and-9 at the Crossings 19-yard line.
The Lions went for a pass to Rodriguez in the end zone, but Crossings was flagged for pass interference, giving Chandler a first down at the 9.
Two plays later, Jones ran from the three around the right side into the end zone, putting the Lions up 18-16.
Crossings wasn’t through, however. The Knights had 1:12 on the clock and moved down to Lions’ 30, where they faced a 4th down at the 30-yard line with 13.7 ticks left.
The Lions broke up the fourthdown pass near the end zone, took over possession and drained the clock to get the win.
“We missed a bunch of shots going deep early in the game and their coach did a good job,” Gray said. “They man pressed us all night and got in our face, and just said ‘we’re going to take you man-to-man and make you throw it on us.’
“You have to win these games to go to the playoffs and have any kind of a shot at a district championship. We had some guys banged up going into Beggs and got some more guys hurt in the game, so now we’re real banged up.
“I’m glad we got the victory, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
Friday’s results left four teams in District 2A-2 with 1-0 league records.
Those four are matched up this week, with the Lions going to Jones and Prague heading to Meeker for their annual grudge game.