High school football: Falcons field goal seals win over Panthers

South Central’s Colby Tucker was the man of the moment for the Falcons’ football team.

Twice.

His 40-yard field goal in the waning seconds helped complete a South Central comeback in a 17-14 victory over North Pitt on Friday.

“He kicked the devil out of that sucker, man,” South Central coach Chris Cherry said.

Tied at 14 with 1:44 to play, South Central took over on downs at its own 22-yard line. After offsetting penalties and another penalty to the Falcons pushed them back to their 17, Drew Thomas broke off a pair of runs, one of them for 15 yards. South Central quarterback Cam Whitley then found Bobby Williams for a 34-yard gain to the North Pitt 31 with 24 seconds remaining.

Whitley then found his go-to target throughout the game, De’Vaius Johnson, for another eight yards to the 23, setting up a second-and-2 with 15 seconds to go. On first down, Whitley found Avian Hewlett in the end zone, but Hewlett could not get his feet down and was pushed out of bounds before he could do so. The Falcons had another incompletion on third down.

So out came Tucker, who set the kicking tee on the North Pitt 30 for the field-goal attempt. The snap and hold were solid, and the kick sailed through the uprights with plenty of leg to spare with 2 seconds to go.

“I was nervous — I’m not gonna lie — but I want to thank God for letting me kick it up through the uprights,” Tucker said.

The kick, according to Tucker, was his career long.

“He kicked that yesterday,” Cherry said. “He does that all the time. We have a lot of faith in him.”

Tucker was also in the right place at the right time to get South Central’s comeback started. Trailing 14-0 late in the third quarter and facing fourth-and-goal at North Pitt’s 8, Whitley threw toward the end zone. The ball was batted in the air — just as Tucker, not the intended receiver on the play, ran past to corral the ball wildly spinning in the air toward the ground for a Falcons touchdown. Tucker then added the point-after attempt to cut the Panthers advantage to 14-7 with 3:56 left in the third quarter.

North Pitt (1-1), which had been in command since Xavier Maldonado stepped in front of a pass by South Central’s Trel Nobles and returned it 74 yards for the only touchdown of the first half less than five minutes into the game, was still in control.

That is, until a punt on fourth-and-4 from its own 42-yard-line.

South Central’s Michael Wilson caught the punt at his own 26 and sped down the left sideline before cutting across the field for a 74-yard touchdown.

What really upset North Pitt coach CJ Wilson was that only 10 players in his team’s road white jerseys were on the field for the play.

“I’m just disappointed with my coaching staff — not the players, but the coaching staff,” Wilson said. “That has nothing to do with the players. They played their hearts out. It’s on us. I take full responsibility as a head coach.”

Tucker’s point-after attempt knotted the game at 14.

“That was a wild one tonight,” Cherry said. “Give our kids credit. They showed a lot of resiliency and a lot of fight to come back in the end like that.”

The only other scoring play capped North Pitt’s opening drive of the second half, when Ethan Wilson caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from Famous Wilson to put the Panthers up 14-0 with 8:52 to play in the third quarter.

The win improved South Central to 3-0. The Falcons were 2-0 last season when they faced North Pitt last, lost the game in Bethel and then won just once down the stretch to finish 3-7.

“We’ve grown up a lot mentally,” Cherry said. “We weren’t quite ready to play tonight. That’s on me more than anybody. I have to do a better job of getting us prepared next week, but it’s good to talk about that after a win.”

Johnson hauled in 12 passes for 75 yards for South Central. The Falcons’ CJ Akande rushed for 67 yards on 14 carries.

North Pitt’s Xaden Maldonado rushed for 88 yards on 12 carries.

On Friday, North Pitt is scheduled to play its home opener against Holmes from Edenton, while South Central will make the trip northeast to play Currituck County.