Sports

Hawks laugh last against Patriots in wild game


Rachel Moore kicks game-winning field goal in final seconds to give Hanover first win against Patrick Henry.

Published: September 08, 2007
By Brian J. French

Rachel Moore was one of the crowd in the stands at a Hanover football game last year, watching the Hawks rebound from a 0-4 start to make an improbable run to the Central Region Division 5 playoffs.
She got to make a little history of her own Friday.
Moore kicked a 21-yard field goal with 13 seconds left to lift Hanover to a wild 29-28 win against Patrick Henry before an overflow home crowd.
Moore, who played soccer for Hanover in the spring before trying out for the football team, missed her first extra point but hit her next two, and that gave coach Josh Just all the confidence he needed to let her try to win it for them.
“It feels amazing,” said Moore, a junior. “The first time was a mechanical thing; I planted my foot down not in the right spot. But the last three times I guess I fixed it.”
Added Just, who gave Moore a “good luck charm” in the form of the number worn by previous starting kicker Scott Shope: “She’s a perfectionist.”
Byron Harris gave the Patriots a 28-26 lead with 2:59 left on a 36-yard run, and Patrick Henry recovered an unexpected onsides kick with the chance to run out the clock.
But a Hanover defender ripped the ball out of quarterback Brandon Cash’s hands near midfield, and Jamel Mitchum fell on it.
The Hawks then moved the ball down to the Patrick Henry 4-yard line, converting a 4th-and-16 when Josh Wells hit Dallas Brummell with a 20-yard pass. That set the stage for Moore’s kick, which gave the Hawks their first win against the Patriots in five attempts and possibly foretold a changing of the guard in Hanover County football.
“We knew if we could score points, we could win,” Just said. “This was an overall team effort.”
The two teams traded the lead five times in the fourth quarter.
Josh Wells threw for 110 yards, tossing one touchdown and running for another in the second half for Hanover.
Ryan Smith ran for 75 yards and scored on a second-quarter punt return for Patrick Henry, which played the second half without Adrian Cavanaugh, who was out with an undisclosed injury.
—For further details, read this week’s Mechanicsville Local


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