SELMER – South Side needed a spark.
Early in the third quarter, McNairy Central recovered a South Side fumble and then threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to cut the Hawks’ lead to 14-6.
Right after the score, Mahlik Booze told some McNairy players he would return the kickoff for a touchdown.
“Literally,” Booze said. “If you watch the film, as soon as they scored, I told the other team, ‘I’m going to go on and score real quick.’ Then it happened, just like that.”
Booze’s kickoff return covered 72 yards and swung the momentum back to the Hawks in a 42-6 victory at McNairy on Thursday night.
The win secured a third seed playoff spot for South Side (3-5 overall, 3-1 Region 6-4A).
As McNairy lined up for the kickoff, Booze told the line to be ready for a squib kick. The ball bounced once at the 31 yard line, and Booze took it at the 28 with a running start.
“He (McNairy’s kicker) lined it up straight toward me and kicked it straight toward me,” he said. “When I grabbed the ball, I saw an open hole about the 40 and I ran straight to it for the touchdown.”
It was a big play at the right time.
“That was a big momentum change,” coach Tyler Reeder said. “We turned the ball over on offense and then defensively we get frustrated with ourselves for making a mistake and not actually focusing on what McNairy is doing. When that happened, we allowed a receiver to get behind us and they get a touchdown.”
That’s two mistakes in a couple plays.
“Now we’ve got a choice at this point,” Reeder said. “We can either feel sorry for ourselves and make a third one or somebody can step up and make a big play. Mahlik did that. He stepped up, spun the game around and we were able to finish strong.”
South Side’s two first-half touchdowns each came on a fourth down play.
South Side received the opening kickoff and marched quickly marched into McNairy territory to face fourth-and-9 from the 16-yard line. Morgan Thomas scored on a pass from quarterback Cole Britton to make it 7-0.
In the second quarter, Charlie Hartshaw scored on fourth-and-goal from the 6-yard line to extend the lead to 14-0.
After Booze’s prophetic kickoff return, the defense came up big for South Side. On McNairy’s next possession, Garrison Parker returned an interception 22 yards for a touchdown to make it 28-6.
“I was chasing their quarterback from the back,” Parker said. “I saw Nick Powell and Clay Westover coming down, and when they hit him, his arm came forward and the ball went straight up. My next thoughts were ‘don’t drop it’ and ‘don’t get caught.’”
Chuck Stokes ran for a touchdown in the third quarter and capped the scoring with another touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
Parker said it “feels great” to secure the region’s third seed for the playoffs. “But we’re trying to go for No. 2 right now,” he added.
To do that, though, the Hawks will have to play much better than they did tonight.
“We were off tonight,” Reeder said. “Like I told the kids, we’re going to celebrate a great win, but we’ve got two really good football teams coming up the next two weeks.”
The Hawks play for a Madison County championship next Friday at North Side and close out the regular season Oct. 29 at home against Lexington.
“We just can’t get complacent. We were penalized probably more tonight as a total than if you combine all the other games we’ve played in all year. With it being Week 8, we’ve got to clean that up. Yes, they are kids, and they are going to make mistakes – and we can live with that – but we can’t turn one mistake into two, and that’s what happened tonight. We turned one mistake into about 15.”
Still, the Hawks are headed to the playoffs for a fifth consecutive year.
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