Newman dominates second half to rally past Kewanee

STERLING – Trailing after a first half that saw Kewanee dominate play, the Newman football team rallied with two long touchdown drives, then got a key stop in the final 3 minutes to pull out a 20-17 win Friday night at Roscoe Eades Stadium.

Trailing 17-7 at the break, the Comets (6-3) played Blue Machine football to take control in the second half. After the defense got a Kewanee three-and-out to open the half, the offense went on an eight-play, 77-yard drive that took nearly four minutes off the clock. Marcus Williams had a 45-yard run early in the drive, then capped it off with a 2-yard touchdown run to get within 17-14 with 5:46 left in the quarter.

“We went into halftime knowing we made a lot of first-half mistakes, with a lot of penalties,” Williams said. “We just said if we slow down the game, really just lock in and stay disciplined to what we want to do and how we play, that’s what the second half led to, playing Blue Machine football.”

Then, after turning Kewanee over on downs at the Newman 32 following an explosive kickoff return by Keyontiss Patterson on the next series, the Comets drove 68 yards for another score, this time a Cody Donna pass to Owen McBride in the right corner of the end zone for a 20-17 lead.

“I was so nervous that I was going to step out of bounds,” McBride said. “But Cody threw the perfect ball, the line did a great job blocking and giving him time, and he was able to get it to me in the end zone.”

That possession lasted 17 plays and took 8:11 off the clock.

The Boilermakers (8-1) then drove the ball to the Newman 15-yard line in a 13-play drive that last 3:57. But lining up for a tying field goal attempt from Brady Clark, the snap was bobbled and Newman tackled the ball carrier to force another turnovers on downs.

“He fumbled the snap a little bit, and he tried to pick it up and rum and it didn’t work out,” Kewanee coach Brad Swanson said.

Newman got a first down on the first play of the final possession, thanks to a Kewanee facemask penalty. Then on third-&-2, Williams broke off a 34-yard run, staying in bounds for the final first down to seal the win.

Williams was a workhorse in the second half, with 12 of his 17 carries coming after the break. He finished with 137 yards, while the other six Comets backs combined for 100 yards on 25 carries.

In the second half, the Comets gained 191 yards on 26 plays, all runs except for the touchdown pass; in the first half, they gained just 57 yards on 21 plays.

“It’s what we’ve done since the beginning of the Blue Machine,” lineman Garrett Williams said. “We take the ball and go on long drives, punch the other team in the mouth and work our way down the field.

“On the line, we’re just brothers. We know when to pick each other up, and how to get it going when we’re down. We played OK in the first half, but we had to really turn it up in the second half for us to win this game.”

Not only did Newman move the ball, but the time of possession limited the time Kewanee’s high-powered offense was on the field. The Boilermakers gained 205 yards on 25 plays in the first half, but managed only 68 yards on 21 plays after the break.

The Comets had the ball for 14:36 in the second half, and Kewanee possessed it for 8:55.

“Newman did a really good job. Their O-line controlled the line of scrimmage, and that’s what Newman football is,” Swanson said. “They want to control the clock, and they had two long drives and we didn’t get the ball much.”

Kewanee quarterback Will Bruno was 14-for-22 passing for 195 yards and a touchdown, and he also ran for a 1-yard TD in the second quarter. Patterson ran for 65 yards on 15 carries, while Jordan Johnson had six catches for 76 yards, and Niko Powe had three catches for 74 yards.

Newman struck first, as McBride returned the opening kickoff 80 yards to the Kewanee 13-yard line. Ethan Van Landuit cashed in four plays later with a 1-yard plunge, and the Comets led 7-0 just 2:04 into the game.

While that didn’t set the tone as well as the Comets would have liked, they started feeling that again in the second half, and were able to ride that momentum from that point on.

“After the first touchdown of the second half, we definitely got that feeling back that we had after that first score,” McBride said. “The effort just changed in the second half. We came out ready to fight. Also, we limited our mistakes; something clicked in the second half and we stopped making those mistakes.”

After the teams traded punts, Kewanee started at its own 31 and quickly moved into Newman territory after Bruno connected with Powe on a 54-yard pass on the first play. Bruno hit Johnson on an 8-yard TD pass on fourth-&-3 to tie the score 7-7 with 2:26 left in the first quarter.

After back-to-back penalties on the next series, Newman was facing third-&-20 from its own 14, and Powe intercepted a Donna pass and returned it to the Newman 1. After a false start penalty, Patterson ran for 5 yards and Bruno snuck in for a 14-7 lead with 11:08 left in the first half.

Kewanee forced another Newman punt, but Newman got a stop on downs after the Boilers moved back into Newman territory on a pass interference penalty and a 35-yard pass play. Then a Newman three-and-out gave Kewanee the ball back at its own 33-yard line with 1:18 to play.

A 20-yard pass from Bruno to Clark on fourth-&-2 set up the Boilers at the Newman 15, and an 11-yard pass from Bruno to Johnson set up a 20-yard field goal by Clark as time expired in the half to give Kewanee a 17-7 lead.

But in the second half, the Comets completely flipped the script.

“They’ve got a heck of an offense, very high-powered and up-tempo, and we had to keep adjusting on defense,” Marcus Williams said. “But at halftime, something just clicked, and we locked in. For us seniors, this could possibly be our last time playing on this home turf, so there was no way we were going out with a loss. We just bought in and played a very clean second half.”