Nightmare at Mercer; Hyacks survive disastrous fourth quarter to stay alive

The scariest holiday of the year may have been last weekend, but this Friday, the New Westminster Hyacks found themselves starring in their own Halloween horror film. The title of that movie would be something along the lines of "Drowning in the consequences of my own mistakes." That title may not be adequate for a real box office hit, but the terror the Hyacks felt very much was.

If you ask the Hyacks' coaching staff, this idea for a motion picture never should've come to fruition. Leading the G.W. Graham Grizzlies 42-23 in the third quarter, the Hyacks looked to have put the game away for good as one of their receivers streaked down the sideline after making multiple defenders look silly.

As he ran towards the goal line, he slowed down. Grizzlies DB Noah Spaner caught him from behind and knocked the ball out in the process, forcing a turnover. After that high effort, no quit play, pure chaos ensued.

The Grizzlies adopted Spaner's mindset and completely flipped the game. That fumble was just one of three consecutive mishaps by the Hyacks' offence, a unit that to that point had looked unstopable.

"For about 2 and a half quarters, our offence was on fire. We scored on every possession and were able to consistently pop big plays in the running and passing game," said Hyacks' offensive coordinator Darnell Sikorski.

"I'm not sure why the uncharacteristic fumbles occurred. We really haven't had any issues in the fumble department, but it showed up in the last 18 minutes of the game."

That they did. Lincoln Boyd, Denver Adam, Cody Hagel and Ridley Mastin were fantastic for the Grizzlies' offence as those miscues led to 13 unanswered points for G.W.

With the score now 42-36 in the Hyacks' favour, the Grizzlies had the ball back with a chance to win the game. Everything came down to a 4th and long deep inside Hyacks' territory.

Boyd dropped back to pass and worked through his progression. He spotted Mastin in the middle of the field 1 on 1 with Hyacks' safety Daniel Penalver and then uncorked a jump ball to the back of the endzone.

Penalver flipped his hips, stayed in phase, jumped and knocked down the potential game-winning score. The Hyacks' sideline erupted in both pure elation and relief as the team had survived their worst nightmare; their season was still alive.

"That was a good team who fought us tooth and nail to the very last play. There were moments in that game where I thought they wanted it more, but our defence held on at the time when we needed it most," said Hyacks head coach Andrew McKechnie.

"A win is a win in the playoffs, but I feel like we should have put it away sooner and not let them hang around to mount an almost comeback."

The Hyacks will certainly not be able to turn the ball over three times if they hope to upset the #1-ranked WJ Mouat Hawks next week. We all know how good the Hawks' pass-first offence has been this season, but the Hyacks' attack has really found its way despite the turnovers this past week.

"Kah'ri ate again tonight when he had his touches, but they were so geared up to stop our running game. That led to QB Gavin Rai having his best game as a Hyack. We had some really big plays in the passing game with Eli Smith, Tayler Rebalkin and Nigel DeRasp," said Sikorski.

"Nigel is playing really good football right now and you can see his confidence on both sides of the ball skyrocket in the last few games. He's shifty and electric," he continued.

If the Hyacks clean up their mistakes and take care of the football, we might be in store for a good old-fashioned shootout next Friday. Will the Hawks continue their dominant ways? Or will the Hyacks flip the script of their last game and scare the daylight out of the Hawks? Only time will tell.