A great second half comeback ended up one score short as a Portal Panthers fell in Twin City to ECI by a final score of 36 to 28 and the Bulldogs captured the region championship and Portal falls to 7-2.
Portal trail 28 to 7 at the half but had the ball inside the 20 on two different opportunities including inside the 10 at one point.
ECI dominated the first half but Portal came to play in the second half outscoring the Bulldogs 21 to 8 Portal cut lead to eight with under two minutes to play in the game as quarterback Omod Thomas hit Rasheen Jackson for a 28-yard touchdown pass on 4th and 12.
Portal attempted an onside kick which failed and ECI was able to run out the clock. Coach Jason McEachin was frustrated with the loss but proud of the way his team battled back.
“I loved the way our team fought in the second half but we just fell a little too far behind in the first half,” McEachin said. “We fought back but we just dug too deep a hole there in the first half. Credit to ECI they are a really good football team but I thought we hung right in there with them.”
ECI scored on their first five possessions including all four in the first half. Portal answered their first touchdown with a 12-yard pass from Thomas to Zell Purcell to make it 7-7.
On their next possession they failed on third and one and had to punt. The next time they had the ball they drove to the right-yard line behind some nice running from K.J. Hunter who wished with 131 yards rushing. A false start would be followed by a few plays that lost yardage and a failed field goal attempt. McEachin addressed not going with Hunter on those plays.
“We had been heavy tendency in a couple of those personnel packages,” McEachin said. “Running a lot so we tried to get the play action pass off and some of it was an option game and Omod chose not to run that one. A couple times he ran because that was what the option read told him to do and we just didn’t execute.”
Portal executed much better in the second half. Hunter scored on a one-yard run to cut the lead to 28-14. ECI answered and then McEachin went with some trickery. Lining up for a punt at midfield the ball was snapped to the up-back Josh Coleman who then faked as if he was snapping the ball again instead, he faked snapping and held the ball behind his butt and ended up faking everyone out and ran 52-yards down to the four-yard line. Jason Crawford then scored on a pitch to cut the lead to 36-21.
The Portal defense then held ECI for the first time all game. The offense proceeded to move down field and Thomas hit Rasheen Jackson on a 28-yard touchdown pass on fourth and 12 for the final points of the game.
Portal entered the game as the No. 9 seed in the power poll rankings. Even with the loss they are in a good position to host the state playoffs if they beat McIntosh County Academy next Friday in Portal.
“If we win that game, we would actually be ranked higher than ECI,” said coach McEachin. “I think showed who we can be in the second half of that game and hopefully we can put it all together next week against MCA.”
