Williams victory at Maxwell a dark one

Players, fighting cramps and fatigue, lifted themselves up off the turf for the next snap, and the next snap and the one after that.

Battle-weary, prideful warriors of the gridiron reached for all they had to offer.

In the end, it was a player who had to lift himself from the depths of self doubt and utter defeat who emerged as the hero, carrying his teammates to a victory that will be talked about and grumbled over for a very, very long time.

Jose Rodriguez booted a 36-yard field goal with 11 seconds to play, redeeming himself after three misses, and lifting Williams High to a 23-20 road win over rival Maxwell on Friday night.

"He told me he didn't want to go out there for the fourth kick," Yellowjackets coach Dan McDonald said of his senior kicker. "But I told him I had confidence in him."

McDonald also told his players at halftime they were going to win the game on a field goal.

"I just didn't think it would take four tries," McDonald said.

Williams (2-0) rallied from a two-touchdown deficit to hand the Panthers (0-1) a loss in their season opener, a game filled with head-scratching twists of fate, and a fortuitous 21-minute break that may have saved the Yellowjackets from defeat.

"When the lights went out, that's when the game turned around," Maxwell coach Robert Wilson said.

Two standards of lights went down just minutes after Maxwell had taken a 20-12 lead with 5:58 left in the first half, scoring on a 1-yard keeper by quarterback Tyler Wells.

The short burst capped a 10-play, 70-yard drive that took just 4 minutes as the Panthers went to a no-huddle game plan that clearly had Williams gasping.

"I think we were wearing down," McDonald admitted. "So the lights did go out at the right time for us."

At the time, however, the delay did not seem to matter that much.

On Williams' next possession, Lane Pearson picked off Carlos Velasquez for the first of his three interceptions — or was it four.

The interception that wasn't will be one of the two most talked about plays from the game, adding to the storied rivalry between two schools separated by 10 miles of interstate and years of competitive bitterness.

With 3:28 to play in the game, the score knotted at 20-20, the Panthers began driving the ball from their own 20.

A 26-yard connection from Wells to Steven Perry quickly moved the ball to the 46. Five plays later, Maxwell faced a third-and-11 from the Williams; 45 — 1:43 showing on the clock — when Wells launched the ball across the middle only to find the 'Jackets' Tony Salcedo.

A penalty flag was thrown, and by all expectations, it appeared a defensive pass interference would be called. Instead, after Salcedo had returned the ball back to the Maxwell 38, the call went against the Panthers. A personal foul penalty at the end of the play took the ball to the 23.

"That was not an offensive pass interference. The guy hit our player," Wilson said.

With 1:30 left in the game, and Williams starting with the ball on the Maxwell 23, a holding penalty moved the ball back 10 yards and an incomplete pass left the Yellowjackets staring at a second-and-18.

Backup quarterback Ben Mayes took the next snap and dropped into the pocket that quickly collapsed. He launched the ball across the middle of the field.

This time it was Pearson who appeared to make the play, only to have what was described as an unsportmanlike penalty not only wipe out a nice 31-yard return out to the 40, but Williams actually ended up keeping possession on the 20.

A run into the middle of the defensive pile gained no yardage, but the clock counted down to 11.4 seconds when Williams called a timeout and sent Rodriguez onto the field.

Maxwell tried to freeze the kicker with its own timeout, but this time, Rodriguez would not fail.

"I just tried to space everyone out, like there was not defense out there," said Rodriguez, who had missed from 31 yards in the third period, and from 46 and 34 yards in the fourth period.

"I thought I was done, but the coaches and all the fans were behind me, and the players were telling me I could do it," Rodriguez said.

"And when I saw the ball turn, I knew I had made it."

Maxwell opened the scoring on a 15-yard run by Perry with 7 minutes left in the first period. A fumbled snap doomed the two-point conversion attempt, and the Panthers led 6-0.

They padded the advantage to 14-0 on the first play of the second quarter as Wells connected on a 27-yard pass, and found Steven Powell on the conversion.

Williams got back into the game when Leo Tapia returned the ensuing kickoff 87 yards for a score, and 1 minute and 30 seconds later, the Yellowjackets executed a perfect 45-yard hook-and-lateral, Velasquez to Salcedo to Jesus Camarena to make it a 14-12 game with 10:17 left in the half.

Wells' 1-yard plunge made it 20-12, only to have Williams answer in the third quarter with an eight-play, 60-yard drive capped by a 15-yard strike from Velasquez to Tapia to knot the game at 20-all with 7:18 left in the third.

It was a see-saw affair from that point on, as penalties and turnovers seemed to shift the momentum on alternating possessions.

"We just stopped executing," lamented Wilson. "The penalties and turnovers just killed us."