Darius Wade racked up 405 yards of total offense Friday night to lead Chandler to a 56-41 win over Lindsay.
The win puts the Lions in sole possession of second place in District 2A1-2. If they win this week at Crossings Christian, they’ll play Washington the following week for the district championship.
The Lindsay game featured a little bit of everything, from a fake punt to set up a Lindsay touchdown to repetitive penalty flags that brought back two Chandler touchdowns to a bad snap leading to a 59-yard touchdown pass to Wade connecting with Jordan Denson for 99 yards passing and two touchdowns in a 49-second span in the third quarter.
Wade finished 267 yards and two touchdowns on 11-of-17 passing and ran 15 times for 148 yards and another score.
It was his second start in place of senior Clayton Ritchie, who suffered a knee injury at Anadarko.
“Last week he had two days of quarterback practice, so we got an extra week,” Gray said. “His arm was very sore tonight and has been sore all week from not having thrown all year.
“Wednesday and yesterday we didn’t have him throw hardly at all because his arm was sore from trying to get throws in.
“He threw some good balls and did a lot of things with speed. He’s very versatile.”
Wade threw for 140 yards and two touchdowns to Denson, who spent much of the night behind the Leopards’ secondary.
Gray was happy with the win and the Lions’ district situation, but says the team needs to start faster and get fewer penalties.
“We have to clean up the penalties, he said. “It’s lot of stuff way behind, not at the point of attack. We’re getting called for a lot of stuff way back in the back.
“We have to get that squared away. We got penalized a lot tonight - a lot of unexplained penalties.
“But as far as us and what we control, we have to start off way faster. Last week we started off fast with a lot of energy, guys flying around.”
Chandler never trailed, but had trouble shaking Lindsay, which twice came back from 14-point deficits.
It wasn’t until late in the fourth quarter that the win was in the bag.
“They got their backs against the wall,” Gray said of the Lions. “We had two turnovers and we just fed the ball back to them twice in a row. They got their backs against the wall and they started fighting like caged animals.
“We’ll have to fix that so it doesn’t take that to get us going as fast and as efficiently and physically as possible Chandler scored first, when Wade hit Josiah Tillis with a 43-yard pass to set up a 2-yard scoring by Jordan Denson with 8:13 left in the first quarter.
Lindsay tied it at 7-7 less than a minute later, but Wade ran 60 yards for a score a minute after that. Levi Becktol’s kick made it 14-7, but Lindsay answered on its next drive and tied the score again.
Chandler had two long runs called back because of holding penalties, but got the go-ahead touchdown late in the second period. Wade hit Denson with a long pass, then ran it in from a yard out.
The Lions went up by two scores with 7:20 left in the half. The Lions miscued on the snap, but Wade turned it into chicken salad by scrambling until Tillis got open for a 59-yard catch-and run for a touchdown.
Becktol hammered the extra-point, making it 28-14, but Lindsay came back with a score with 3:20 left in the half to cut the margin to 28-21.
Wade ran four yards for a score early in the third quarter. The Leopards returned the kickoff after Wade’s touchdown to the Chandler 2, then scored on the next play.
The Lions gave them the ball back after a fumbled punt and the Leopards turned it into a touchdown, tying the score at 35-35.
Chandler got back on top with 54 ticks left in the third quarter when Wade connected with Denson for a 51-yard touchdown pass. The Lions went for an on-side kick, which Denton recovered.
Two plays later, Wade found him again for a 48yard touchdown pass with five seconds left. Wade connected with Tillis for a two-point conversion, making it 49-35 going into the fourth quarter.