JACKSONVILLE - Oakleaf High football coach Chris Foy had commented before the 2024 season that one of this season's objectives was to win the big games.
"We got to learn to close and finish games," said Foy, after Friday's thrilling, but losing 57-50 pseudo-track meet (864 total offensive yards between both teams) against Bolles ended with the Bulldogs answering the final offensive series with a scoring strike with less than two minutes on the game clock. "In a game like this, sometimes it is special teams that make the difference."
For Foy's Knights, for a second week in a row, the final minutes of the game proved disastrous with two-time state champion Hawthorne winning a 27-21 contest last week on a Hail Mary pass into the end zone after a 50-yard kickoff return and added penalty flag put Hawthorne within reach of the final toss. Oakleaf had kept the game against Hawthorne a nailbiter with a 72-yard run scamper by Malaci Warten and an even more thrilling 95-yard kickoff return by Micheal Connor III that kept the game knotted.
The 50-yard kickoff return proved fateful with the Knights seemingly able to ensure a short kickoff return with either a pooch kick, kick out of bounds, or proper kick coverage, but Hawthorne proved championship pedigree with the huge play.
Oakleaf's treacherous schedule puts them on the field with a strong Fletcher High team, now 4-1 with a 47-19 win over Sandalwood after a 39-0 defeat by unbeaten Nease a week prior.
Against Bolles, with both teams blasting for three kickoff returns for scores; two by Bolles, the scenario fell to both quarterbacks; Oakleaf's Jack McKissock (293 Passing yards) and Bolles' Ethan Drumm (288 passing yards) who both had astounding career nights of executing and unrelenting drives down the fields.
"I help each other in telling each other what's going on out there," said McKissock. "The guys come in and tell me what they see on the field and I try to connect with them."
From the first quarter, with Bolles scoring first on a 10-yard run after a 25-yard pass play inside the Knight's 30, the Knights, led by McKissock and running back Chris Foy II, were unrelenting in answering every Bolles salvo with Foy sprinting to the Bolles 30 with a 36-yard scamper. Foy kept bashing Bolles tacklers and moved the ball to the Bulldog 20 with another bashing run; his sixth of the series. A pass to Denero Jacobs to the Bulldog four set up Foy's blast to the end zone.
"We work together every day so I don't think I'm any better than anyone on the team," said Foy. "We never let up at any point. This was the first time we got 50 points with this coaching staff."
Bolles went big with their running back, Emmett Grzebin, who got to the Knight's four before bashing in from one yard out to put Bolles up 14-7.
On third and three from the Oakleaf 30 on the next drive, McKissock hit Carlos Witherup to the Bolles 39-yard line.
Down 28-10 near the end of the first half off a Bolles onsides kick and a rush touchdown from Bolles running back Tyrone Neal, Oakleaf got a nearly 150-yard zig-zagging run from kickoff return man Fareed Coleman to end the half with the score at 28-17 and momentum in the Knights locker room.
"We were just executing and doing our jobs," said McKissock. "I have confidence in myself and the game plan to move the ball."
Neal would strike one more time with a screen pass breaking for a 65-yard scoring play to seemingly put Bolles in the lockers up 35-17, but McKissock immediately retaliated with a scoring strike to Witherup to end the last four minutes with Oakleaf now down 35-24.
With Bolles kicking off after the halftime break, Oakleaf got some offense with McKissock and Witherup connecting and Foy bashing to midfield before Foy took a fake punt to what looked like a first down in the Bolles red zone only to have a flag bringing it back to the 25 with a first down with 8:55 left in the third. McKissock, on a scramble away from four Bolles chasers, found Witherup at the Bolles four-yard line to set up a second down at the six with Foy bashing to the two then into the end zone to go cut Bolles' lead 35-31 with 7:20 left in the third.
In the next Bolles series, Oakleaf defensive tackle Amare "Biggie" Thomas nearly swallowed Drumm up to force a Bolles punt.
"I think they (Bolles offensive line) were testing me at first, but then they found out I was getting through their 'wall'," said Thomas. "After a while, I think I got their respect on the line. They weren't talking so much."
McKissock to Witherup again put the lead in Oakleaf's hands, 37-35 with two minutes left in the third.
Defensive tackle Thomas struck again with another grab of Drumm that almost put Drumm's floundering pass in the hands of linebacker Jermaine Robinson only to have Robinson drop the gimme.
McKissock took the ensuing drive to paydirt against Jordin Price catching a drop pass behind the Bolles linebackers then outsprinting the secondary to the end zone to put Oakleaf up 43-35 with third about over.
Bolles now answered on the ensuing kickoff with Burroughs finding a seam after battling through three tacklers to score off an 80-yard return to tie the game at 43-43.
McKissock, again, was cool as a cucumber under immense pressure in the pocket and got a bulldog-ish catch and run from Foy from 21 yards out that saw the downhill running powerback drift through the offensive line, catch McKissock's dump pass at the 20 then rumble past three Bolles tacklers before smashing into the end zone put Oakleaf up to a seemingly comfortable 50-43 lead with 6:58 left on the clock.
Three minutes later, though, Drumm found one of these two favorite pass catchers; Chase Collier (a Baylor commit), and the other Naeem Burroughs, with Collier tying the game with 5:04 left.
Drumm would next find Burroughs for the game-winner with Oakleaf getting one final shot with 1:45 on the clock.
McKissock, though, had a critical misfire on the ensuing drive with Bolles sending the defense from all corners to pressure the pocket, and McKissock throwing low to wide-out Jordin Price on a fourth and eight situations.
"We told the players at the half that this game was going to be won with one big stop," said Bolles head coach Matt Toblin, a former Clay High head football coach. "For never stopping them for the entire game, we found a way to do that in the last two drives."
Oakleaf's scoring total was nearly equaled to a 69-53 win in 2018 from Knight's quarterback Walter Simmons III, now at Bethune Cookman, who beat Bartram Trail in that shootout.