The Red Devils’ three-game winning streak comes to a devastating end as Timber Creek scored two soul-crushing touchdowns late in the fourth quarter.
Heading into Friday night’s matchup, both Rancocas Valley and Timber Creek were on three-game winning streaks, and both teams were undefeated. As legendary boxer Michael Spinks once said “Somebody’s O has got to go.” Unfortunately, the Red Devils went, despite giving fantastic effort, all of their hard work dissipated in the blink of an eye.
Friday night’s game against Timber Creek was the first of three home games for the Red Devils. Despite losing, the Red Devils looked terrific for the majority of the game, especially WR Devin Duana, who scored all three of Rancocas Valleys’ touchdowns. Duana’s first touchdown came almost halfway through the first quarter, as he received a pass from QB Nicholas Marco at the 15-yard line, then swiftly maneuvered his way through Timber Creek’s defense into the endzone to put the Red Devils up 6-0.
Duana’s second touchdown of the night came early in the second quarter. After the Red Devils pushed Timber Creek to 4th and 16 at their own 40-yard line, forcing a punt that was successfully blocked by RV’s defensive line, Duana picked the ball up at about the 25-yard line and ran right into the endzone, scoring his as well as RV’s second touchdown of the game.
At this point, the Red Devils held a 12-0 lead with a little less than 10 minutes remaining in the second quarter. Rancocas Valley’s defense held Timber Creek to a whopping 0 points from the beginning of the game all the way until the 4-minute mark in the second quarter, when Timber Creek finally scored a touchdown, closing the gap to 5 heading into halftime.
Immediately out of halftime, RB Jameer Bellamy received the kickoff return and ran all the way from RV’s 20-yard line to the opponent’s 30-yard line where he was unfortunately tripped up by his own teammate.
Soon after Bellamy’s spectacular run, Marco handed off the ball to Duana, who from about the 33-yard line sliced and stiff-armed his way through multiple defenders into the endzone for his 3rd touchdown of the night. Duana’s Impressive touchdown gave the Red Devils an 18-7 lead with about eleven minutes left in the third.
Once again, Rancocas Valley’s defense successfully put Timber Creek in a scoring drought from late in the second quarter all the way up to about two and a half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, where Timber Creek scored off of one of the craziest sequences I have ever witnessed.
Timber Creeks QB Victor Oquendo threw an interception in the endzone right into the hands of safety David Godbolt, who was tripped up immediately upon running out of the endzone by Timber Creek’s WR, causing him to lose the ball, which was recovered by Timber Creek’s RB Zyeir Green, who ran into the endzone to cut the lead to five points once again.
This time around, it was Timber Creek who had a great defensive possession, giving them the ball back at RV’s 42-yard line with a minute and a half remaining in the game.
RV led 18-13, and their defense forced Timber Creek into a final attempt play at 4th and 6, however, they successfully got the first down.
Timber Creek was 2nd and 10 with about 50 seconds remaining when Oquendo threw a 35-yard dot to WR Marcus Upton, who shook off two defenders to catch the ball with only his right hand and spun into the endzone to give his team a 19-18 lead. As if that play was not devastating enough for the Red Devils, Timber Creek decided to go for the 2-point conversion rather than taking the extra-point field goal. They successfully converted through the exact same play in the exact same area to the exact same player, Marcus Upton who once again shook off both of his defenders in the endzone.
This gave Timber Creek a 21-18 lead with about 40 seconds remaining, which wasn’t enough time for the Red Devils to make any progress on the scoreboard.
The crowd was absolutely stunned. The student section was silenced, everyones breath was taken away. We went from up double digits to watching Timber Creek storm the field in about a 5-minute window.
The players were visibly upset and frustrated heading into the locker room over the way the final sequence of events unfolded.
“To put it nicely, I was very mad,” said Red Devils OL Matt Burgo. “Two touchdowns at the end of the game that shouldn’t have happened happened. Timber Creek didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves tonight.”
According to Burgo, the team was looking forward to celebrating the end of an eight-year drought in their home opener.
“This game meant a lot to us, it’s been eight years since we have started a season 4-0, and we had an opportunity to earn everyones respect by doing that here tonight and we couldn’t get it done,” Burgo said. “We didn’t gain the respect we wanted.”
Similar to Burgo, Coach Lucas claimed that it was lack in killer instinct that costed them the game.
“Postitvely, we played more physical than we did in the previous three games, the only real difference I think was the ability to have that killer mindset of finishing out a game,” he said.
Despite the game being so early on in the season, coach Lucas says that there was a sense of playoff intensity in this game that they hadn’t had all season.
“The good thing for us is we were playing a really good team, in a weird way, it was kind of like a playoff game for us. It was good for [the team] to get that experience now, so they know the pain and frustration of losing. Hopefully they can channel that into this week as well as the coming weeks,” Coach Lucas added.
The Red Devils will get a chance at redemption the Friday night at home, which also happens to be RV’s senior night. Rancocas Valley will host Burlington Township, who has a record of 2-2, however, both of their losses have been consecutive over the last two weeks. Hopefully this Friday the Red Devils can bounce back in a demanding win against Burlington Township.
