Late penalty enables Rebels to escape Bulldogs

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on September 16, 2014 1:51 PM

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CALYPSO -- Staring an agonizing defeat squarely in the face, North Duplin got the reprieve it needed -- a yellow flag laying near the midfield stripe.

The Rebels didn't waste their second chance.

The defense logged a quarterback sack and forced Dixon into a short pass as time expired in a 15-14, non-conference victory at H.E. Grubbs Field on Monday evening.

"Whew!" exclaimed ND head coach Hugh Martin.

Indeed.

Trailing 15-14 with 1:27 left in regulation, the Bulldogs' defense forced their fifth fumble of the game. Two passes fell incomplete. On the next play, Dixon's Taylor Wiley took a counter handoff from fullback James Witherspoon.

Hemmed in the backfield, Wiley cut back to his left and found some open grass. He avoided two tacklers near midfield and broke free for an apparent 75-yard touchdown run.

But the officials called Dixon for an illegal block in the back.

"A questionable call, don't think the refs should change the game like that, but they did," Bulldogs head coach Brandon Iseman said. "They said he blocked him in the back. That's the way the ball bounces."

Dixon out-gained North Duplin 278-216 in total yards and ran 23 more offensive plays. The Rebels' defense played the equivalent of more than one quarter (12 minutes, 54 seconds) on the field in the second half.

Martin's team shut down the passing lanes all evening, but yielded significant yardage on the zone read. Junior fullback James Witherspoon rambled for a game-high 189 yards on 31 carries, but didn't take the ball to the house.

The defense also compensated for an offense that couldn't hold onto the ball. Dixon converted one fumble on a short field and turned another fumble into eight points with a time-consuming 13-play, 90-yard drive just before intermission.

"We could have gotten down after those turnovers, but we just bowed our back and made them have to work to score, or get a stop ... one of the two," Martin said. "We hung in there and hung in there."

North Duplin grabbed a 7-0 lead on JP Payton's 21-yard run with 7:53 left in the second quarter. Horsley fumbled into the end zone and teammate Gunner Lunsford recovered as the Bulldogs led 8-7 at halftime.

The Rebels took the second-half kickoff and marched 77 yards in 12 plays. Payton connected with Kaleb Brock for an 11-yard scoring pass, then added the two-point conversion.

Dixon (0-3) fumbled away its next possession, but caught a break on the next play. Six-foot, 253-pound sophomore lineman Tanner Tripp recovered his second fumble of the night, and Horsley cashed in seven plays later to make it 15-14.

Senior Cedric Kornegay came up with the game's biggest play when he knocked the two-point conversion pass out of Trentin Edgemon's hands after Horsley's TD.

"Ced understands to tighten up coverage in the end zone because down there you don't have much space," Martin said. "He did a super job on that play."

North Duplin improved to 9-3 all-time against Dixon and earned its 47th victory against Coastal Plains 1-A Conference opposition since the early 1960s.