Clinton took a firstquarter lead and held on to beat Chandler, 41-35, in the season opener Friday night at Joe Telford Field Friday.
The game was exciting, featuring a 97-yard passand-run for a touchdown, a blocked field goal, booming kickoffs from the toe of Chandler’s Levi Becktol, the Lions twice coming from two touchdowns behind to have a chance to win and a Sam Bradford-like somersault touchdown by Lions quarterback Clayton Ritchie.
In the end, though, the Class 4A Red Tornadoes held on for a six-point win, their second in three tries against the Lions.
“We played a little flatfooted on defense and let them run the ball too much,” said Chandler head coach Jack Gray. “We gave them probably 200 yards of hidden yardage on holding penalties, false starts and operations where we didn’t line up right, shifting on the line.
“Just a lot of weird stuff. That’s expected in week zero, but not as heavy as we made it.”
Clinton quarterback Easten Powell threw for 209 yards and three touchdowns and carried the ball 32 times for 318 yards.
Chandler’s Jordan Denson, a senior playing varsity football for the first time, caught six passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns.
Ritchie completed 10 of 17 throws and four touchdowns.
The Lions get a week off before going to Prague on Sep. 11, and Gray said they will use the time to correct some of the firstweek issues.
“We’re going to have to be all over them about false starts, who’s on the ball and who’s off, who’s set, play clock awareness,” Gray said.
“Defensively, we’re going to have to get off our heels. We have to start attacking.
“The run game was there all night, but we kept shooing ourselves in the foot.
“It was just operations. We were playing behind the sticks. It seemed like it was 1st-and-20 all night.”
Clinton scored first and went ahead, 7-0, in the first quarter, but Ritchie pulled the Lions even when he took off on an 18yard run and went airborne at the goal line, much like Bradford did against Oklahoma State in his Heisman season of 2008.
Clinton went back ahead with a touchdown on fourth down and another touchdown set up by an interception by sophomore Parker Turney.
Ritchie connected with Jordan Denson on a fiveyard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 21-14 just before halftime.
Clinton scored again midway through the third quarter, but Ritchie hit Josiah Tillis for a 32-yard scoring pass to make it 2721 with six minutes left in the period.
Clinton built a 41-28 lead and was moving for another score that would have made it a three-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter.
Denson came up big again, intercepting a pass at the goal line and being tackled at the 3.
The very next play, Ritchie found Denson along the right side for a pass-and-run that went 97 yards for a touchdown. Becktol’s point-after made it 41-35 with just over seven minutes to play.
The Lions got the ball back and a chance to take the lead after a fourthdown stop with 5:25 left Darius Wade appeared to put Chandler ahead with a long touchdown run, but it was called back by a holding penalty.
The Lions eventually turned the ball over on a fourth-and-1 play with 4:13 to go and Clinton was able to run out the clock and claim the six-point win.
Becktol was one of the highlights for the Lions.
A senior who was Chandler’s kicker last season, Becktol looked like a golfer who had traded his irons for a driver.
He consistently put kickoffs in the end zone and was money on extra points, hitting five of five.
“He wants to be a kicker and he asked what would be the best thing for him to do over the summer,” Gray said.
“I said ‘We want to see you get strong and put it in the end zone. If you can put it in the end zone, that helps our defense tremendously.’
“He’s dedicated himself to working hard at it. He has a lot more power now and that’s going to be a big weapon for us. Having that all year is going to be nice.”