Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
CARROLLTON - Alex Bowker has had a knack for being in the right place at the right time so far in the playoffs.
After the Camp Point Central Panthers drove 93 yards down the field and scored on a four-yard touchdown run by Chayse Williams with 35.9 seconds to play, they needed a two-point conversion to tie the game. That’s where Bowker comes in. Quarterback Eric Jones rolled to his right and lofted a pass to Tristan Brocksieck, but Bowker jumped and managed to get a hand on the ball and deflect it away.
The Carrollton Hawks defeated Central 20-18 in Carrollton on Saturday afternoon, and the victory avenged their Week Nine loss to the Panthers two weeks ago. This was the third time since 2014 the Hawks have faced Central in the playoffs, and they’ve won every time. Carrollton advances to the quarterfinals and will travel to face the No. 1 seed Tuscola Warriors.
“Alex Bowker got himself in that position to knock the ball down,” Carrollton head coach Nick Flowers said. “Being a running team, I thought for sure [Central] would run the football. They ran motion, and we saw we didn’t have it picked up because they were motioning to a three-receiver set and we had two guys out there. We talked about it in that timeout, and we hoped they would they’d do that again… It was a hard-hitting, hard-fought game.”
“We didn’t get any of our two-point conversions and last time we played them I think we got all of them. They did a good job down there,” Central head coach Brad Dixon said. “It’s three games this year that we’ve all lost in walk-off fashion, so it’s tough.”
In a game that many figured would be a shootout, it was rather a defensive duel between the two friendly rivals, but it didn’t appear to be the case in the early going.
After Carrollton drove downfield but came away empty-handed, Cole Williams rushed for a 69-yard touchdown run on the Panthers second play from scrimmage, and they couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. However, back came the Hawks. Two minutes and 33 seconds later, Carrollton sophomore quarterback Hunter Flowers tallied his 30th touchdown pass of the season on a 16-yard screen pass to Nathan Walker. They converted the two-point conversion and led 8-6 midway through the first quarter.
Flowers and Walker were on the same wavelength all day like they have been for the most of the season. The pair would combine for two more touchdowns in the first half, including a big momentum shift going into halftime.
With nine seconds left on the clock, Flowers surveyed the field with help from the offensive line and threw a deep pass to Walker to the end zone. He leaped and hauled the ball in with a defender in his face with 2.8 seconds to play.
“He had five yards on me. Hunter threw it up, and I just went up and got it,” Walker said. “It was great and way better than last week. I had some freedom and made some catches.”
“That was the score of the game. That was huge,” Flowers said.
For the day Hunter Flowers threw for 213 yards with three touchdowns and an interception.
After giving up the early touchdown to Williams, the Carrollton defense transformed and put in their best shift of the season and denied the Panthers another score in the first half. One key play was a forced fumble recovered by Nathan Cummins at the Panther 16-yard line, which led the Hawks second touchdown to go up 14-6.
“If you told me we were going to hold that team to six points there at the half I would’ve said no way,” Flowers said. “They came back in the second half and stuck to their game plan and ran the football, and hit a couple of big passes.”
The Hawks had a 20-6 cushion going into halftime, but Central came ready to play as Williams capped a five minute and 25-second opening drive with a 4-yard touchdown run. Defensively, the Panthers stepped up big time as well.
In their previous encounter Central limited Carrollton to a season-low 28 points and today, it got lower as they surrendered 20. In fact, the Hawks hadn’t been shutout in a half all season long. No doubt the Panthers played to about the best to their abilities according to Dixon.
“I thought defensively we played probably about as good as we could’ve played, to be honest,” Dixon said. “[Carrollton is] pretty dynamic on offense. We mixed it up and tried to keep them guessing, and did a decent job against the run game. We bent but didn’t break. They got some yards, but we got stops when we needed to so I was proud of us for that.”
For the majority of the game, Central lined up in a 3-4 formation, which meant they had eight defenders covering four Carrollton receivers. That gave Hunter Flowers plenty of time to throw several times but forced the receivers to earn it to get open.
Though they didn’t score in the second half, the Hawks made Central work hard on every drive by getting first downs and using up time.
“We did a good job of controlling the ball in the second half, but we didn’t get in,” Flowers said. “We took what they were giving us, and they have a great coaching and do a great job. They defended us better than anybody this year.”
Central’s season ends at 8-3 with a co-conference championship in the WIVC North.
“I asked the kids to go out and play hard in the second half. It’s hard for a high school kid when they’re down 20-6, and a lot hasn’t [gone] right to come out and play as hard as they could. They did everything I asked of them, but we just fell short to a good Carrollton team.”
This is now the fourth season in six years that Carrollton has made it as far as the quarterfinals. Before 2012 they had never journeyed that far, but now it has been a habit.
“It starts with the players; they work hard in the off-season because the coaches push us and push us every week. Give credit to them.” Bowker said.
“It’s something we don’t ever want to take for granted," Flowers said. It takes so much work to get here by everybody and then to continue to win playoff games. We have a great thing going.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
More like this:
