4-3 A CONFERENCE : Tigers’ free kick short, not costly
Posted on Saturday, November 1, 2008
GREEN FOREST — The Green Forest Tigers clinched a playoff berth and took a step toward a possible league title Friday night when they defeated the Marshall Bobcats 33-6 in 4-3 A Conference play at Tiger Stadium.
It wasn’t exactly an overwhelming performance by the Tigers (7-2, 5-1 ) but still a pretty solid one as they racked up 378 yards on offense, all on the ground, and even attempted one of the most rare and unusual plays in football when they tried to score on a free kick late in the first half.
“We certainly weren’t sharp tonight,” Green Forest Coach Bill Gotto said. “I don’t know exactly what the distraction was, but that’s not the way we’ve played all year. But give Marshall a lot of credit, they came in here and competed real hard. We had some turnovers and a few mental mistakes. We practiced a lot better than that this week.”
Green Forest led 14-0 at the half, scoring a touchdown in the first quarter when Robbie Ness capped a 16-play, 76-yard drive with a 1-yard run, and another touchdown midway through the second quarter when Cody Kilgore had a 2-yard touchdown run just four plays after Luis Castello intercepted a Marshall pass.
After going 0 for 8 passing in the first half, Gotto had his team try the free kick with 1: 04 left in the first half. After the Tigers fair caught a punt by the Bobcats at the Marshall 40, Gotto called for the free kick with the hopes that Castello could boot the ball through the uprights from 50 yards out, but instead was short of the end zone.
“We practice that, and Luis can hit it from that far out,” Gotto said. “But he slipped in the mud trying to kick it. You’re allowed to do that after a fair catch, and we thought we could get three points right there, but with the wet conditions, it was just a bad decision on my part.”
After a offensively sluggish performance in the first half, there was a flurry of scoring over a four-minute stretch in the third quarter. First, Kilgore recovered a fumble by Marshall quarterback A. C. Horton, and on the next play, Kilgore ran over a couple of defenders to the end zone for a 20-0 lead.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Bobcats got their only score of the night when Chris Treat returned the kick 85 yards for a touchdown that cut the score to 20-6.
Then the Tigers needed just seven plays to score again as Abel Reyes scored from a yard out with 6: 30 left in the third to make it 27-7.
The Tigers added their third 1-yard touchdown run of the game early in the fourth quarter when Joel Warren scored to set the final at 33-7.
Ness led Green Forest with 156 yards on 24 carries while Kilgore had 110 yards on nine carries.
Marshall (1-7, 0-6 ), which had just 179 total yards including only 43 in the second half, was led by Cody Kelley, who ran the ball 20 times for 97 yards.
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