Carol City’s fast start pays dividends in district-clinching win over Central

Even though the state may have slowed the Carol City Chiefs down earlier in the week, nobody has slowed them down on the field all season long.

And nothing changed on Friday night for Carol City as not even the mighty Central Rockets, a team coming in with a No. 6 national ranking that has won big game after big game over the years, could find a way to dethrone the top-ranked team in the state.

That after Carol City stunned the Rockets, jumping out to a 16-0 first-quarter lead and never looked back en route to a 36-28 victory in a game not as close as the score would indicate before a packed Traz Powell Stadium that had very few empty seats.

“That’s how we’ve been all year,” said Carol City head coach Benedict Hyppolite. “We always want to start off fast, play aggressively and come out and dictate and control the pace of the football game and that’s how we’ve been doing it all year.”

The win wrapped up the District 16-6A title for the Chiefs, who have had the dark cloud of a state investigation hanging over the program for the last month and were dealt the bad news earlier in the week. Their perfect 8-0 record would become 6-2, having to forfeit their first two wins of the year due to playing two ineligible players.

“I thought we had a great week of preparation, of just making sure we understood that the Lord upstairs, he doesn’t make any mistakes and it just brought us closer together as a family,” said Hyppolite when asked if the news from the state about the forfeited games was a distraction during the week. “The praise is always great when everything is going good but what about when the adversity comes and we’re down. Are we going to come apart or stick together?

“This just brought us closer.”

When Travis McNichols picked off Central quarterback Maurice Underwood and returned it 18 yards for a score, the Chiefs (7-2, 4-0) appeared to have the game salted away, up 36-14 with 7:18 to play.

But the Rockets battled back putting a quick touchdown drive together. Lexington Joseph scored from 10 yards out with 6:29 left to make it 36-20 following a failed two point conversion.

Following a CC three and out, Underwood led his team to the end zone again, driving 74 yards in nine plays, hitting Jaylin Young on a 6-yard scoring pass with 1:28 left. When he hit Young for a successful two point pass, it was a one possession game. But Carol City’s Jarvis Brownlee recovered the onside kick and the Chiefs were able to bleed out the rest of the clock.

“It’s a big win, we’ll run with it and enjoy it but the bottom line is tomorrow everything will be back to 0-0 again,” said Carol City running back Nay’Quan Wright, who finished with 88 yards on 17 carries and two scores. “We know we’ve got a long road ahead of us and could wind up seeing these guys again down the road so we just have to get right back at it.”

Asked if the bad news of the forfeited games served as a distraction during the week in preparation for Friday’s big game, Wright turned philosophical.

“Everyone’s trying to make it a distraction,” said Wright “But once you give it up to God, it’s in his hands and he’s going to take control, we’re just going to take the path he’s laid for us.”

Carol City took advantage of numerous Central mistakes, especially early on as the Rockets struggled terribly with the shotgun snaps from the center and snaps on punts.

The quick Chiefs start began with 4:55 left in the first quarter when, on fourth-and-3 at the Central 36, quarterback Daniel Richardson found a wide open Thaiu Jones-Bell on a blown coverage down the sideline for a touchdown.

A high snap well over Central quarterback Maurice Underwood’s head put the Rockets inside their own 10 on the next series and then a low snap on the punt led to a safety and 9-0 Chiefs lead.

The ensuing free kick gave Carol City the ball at midfield and it took just four plays for the Chiefs to be back in the end zone when Richardson ran it in from 10 yards out and the Rockets had their 16-0 hole before the first quarter was even out, one which they never climbed out of.

A 1-yard touchdown by Joseph in the second quarter made it 16-7 at the half but the Chiefs answered with a touchdown drive to open the second half to go up 23-7 before eventually building their big lead capped off by McNichols’ pick six.

“They (Central) have a tendency to start off a little slow so we wanted to come out and try and jump on them early and that was big,” said Richardson, who finished his night 18-of-25 for 168 yards and one touchdown. “Coaches were preaching all week to come out fast, fast, fast and that’s what we did. What we didn’t do was do a good job of finishing. We allowed them to get back in it late and that’s something we’ll have to work on to get better.”

The irony of Friday night’s big showdown is that it very well could be the first of two.

Despite the two forfeited games, it still appears Carol City will secure the No. 1 seed in Region 4 (the two forfeited games are to two strong teams, Plantation American Heritage and Columbus so will not hurt them in points) while Central will be the No. 5 seed and likely travel to Dillard for a first round game.

As long as neither team stumbles in the first round, a regional semifinal matchup on Nov. 16 is a very good possibility.