Sep. 29—Pisgah’s four-game winning streak came to an end on Friday night after a slow first half left the Bears in too big a hole to climb out of.
Despite the slow start, the Bears put together a strong second half — cutting a 21-point halftime deficit down to just four points in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, the visiting Franklin Panthers came away with the 37-26 win.
“We put ourselves in a situation in the first half that was hard to overcome,” Pisgah Coach Ricky Brindley said. “I was very proud of our kids’ effort in the second half. We battled and battled and battled.”
Pisgah’s first drive of the game ended with a punt before the Panthers drove 60 yards in just under four minutes for the opening score of the game.
Sophomore Garrett Young finished the drive off with a 9-yard touchdown run, the first of four he’d score on the night.
Pisgah answered back with a 66-yard drive taking just over 4 minutes, capped off with senior Landon Pope punching the ball in from the 1-yard line, the first of three rushing touchdowns on the night for the tailback.
From there, the rest of the first half was all Franklin. The Bears punted on all but two other drives in the half — one that ended in an interception and one that ended with the first half coming to an end.
On the other side, Franklin extended its lead with three more touchdowns — three of which were carried in by Young.
At halftime, the Bears trailed 27-6.
“When the chips are down and backs are against the wall, you really find out who has high character, who has the ability to keep working or who is going to look for a way out,” Brindley said. “That’s something we wanted to emphasize at halftime — that’s not who we want to be as men. We want to be men who continue to fight and continue to battle no matter what is going on.”
The message in the halftime locker room was all about answering the challenge that Franklin had presented in the first half.
“I told them that the true test of a man’s character is how he handles adversity,” Brindley said. “We could have rolled over, and our kids continued to fight. You have to give them a lot of credit for their ability to stand up and continue battling.”
And the boys found a way to answer. Franklin’s first drive of the second half was a three-and-out after trying to lean on Young again.
In the first half, Young rushed for 140 yards (7.9 yards per carry) and three touchdowns. In the second half, the Bears buckled down and held Young to 45 yards (2.8 yards per carry) and one score.
“We made some adjustments at halftime to how we were trying to defend him,” Brindley said. “When you’re trying to get a guy like that on the ground that is 6-foot-1, 210 pounds and runs pretty well, it’s a hard thing to do. We did a much better job of tackling in the second half.”
On the following Pisgah drive, the Bears’ offense came alive. Senior quarterback Matthew Mehaffey connected with senior Mason Putnam twice, first for 32 yards and then for a 29-yard touchdown on fourth and 5.
“It was a big deal for us to be able to connect on some things over the top,” Brindley said. “We felt like that was something we needed to be able to do to be successful against this team — be able to get some vertical shots. For us to be able to connect on those two was big for our offense to get chunk yardage and to put ourselves in scoring positions.”
After the score, the Bears stood tall once again with another three-and-out forced.
Once again, the following drive got going with a big catch for Putnam — a 52-yard gain down inside the Franklin 10-yard line.
Putnam finished the night with three catches for 113 yards and a touchdown, while Mehaffey went 8-of-17 through the air for 154 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
One play later, Pope rushed it in from 8 yards out, cutting the deficit all the way down to 27-20 and showing the dangerous one-two punch that the Bears offense has when firing on all cylinders.
“It makes you diverse. It gives you the ability to do different things. It’s a big deal,” Brindley said.
Franklin’s offense finally woke up on its third drive of the second half. The Panthers marched all the way downfield, with help from penalties against the Bears. As the third quarter came to an end, the Bears had their backs to the wall again — down seven as the Panthers had the ball with a first and goal at the 7-yard line.
The fourth quarter started with three-straight stops by the Bears’ front, eventually forcing a field goal that pushed the lead back to 10 points.
“We were in a bad situation from a field position standpoint, but we were able to bow our necks when we had to,” Brindley said. “If we get that block right there, all of a sudden it’s still a one-score game. I was very proud of our defense to put us in a position to even have an opportunity to block a field goal.”
The following Pisgah drive stalled out with Brindley electing to trust the defense and punt on fourth and 7 from the Pisgah 47-yard line.
The decision worked out as the Bears forced a punt, which Putnam made some magic with, needing to break just one more tackle for a score.
Instead, the Bears started at the Franklin 37-yard line. Just a few plays later, Pope punched it in from two yards out to cut the deficit to 30-26 after a failed two-point conversion.
Pope finished the night with 21 rushes for 104 yards and three touchdowns.
With less than two minutes left, Brindley lined up for a normal kickoff and booted the ball downfield — looking to trust his defense to get one last stop.
“They had their hands team on the field. If we can kick the thing down there, get down the field, get the kid tackled inside the 20 or 25, I have three timeouts and they haven’t moved it on us in the second half,” Brindley said. “From a field position standpoint, that was probably the right decision. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, and everybody and their brother has an opinion on what you should do. But we trusted our defense with three timeouts, especially.”
What followed was a huge return for Franklin — bringing the ball back out to the Pisgah 24-yard line. Two plays later, Young went 20 yards for the final score of the game.
The loss drops Pisgah to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
The road ahead doesn’t get any easier for the Bears. Next week, Pisgah hits the road to face West Henderson, who are sitting at 4-1 and 2-0 in conference play.
“It takes leadership from me, leadership from the assistant coaches and continuing to be the same people we’ve always been,” Brindley said. “We’ll continue to put one foot in front of another because that’s all you can do in this sport.”
