Buchholz reminded everyone that you don’t have to score a lot of points to win a game–as long as you win the game.
The Buchholz Bobcats defeated the Oakleaf Knights, 10-7 Friday night to remain unbeaten on the year.
Citizen’s Field welcomed in district-play Friday night with Buchholz playing host to Oakleaf. There was a lot of hype building up around this game all week long.
Rewind to this game last season, Oakleaf was ranked second among Class 7A teams and looked as if they would be contenders for the district title. Buchholz traveled to Oakleaf as the underdog and stole the win—and stole their hopes of the district title.
This season, Buchholz is one of the best in the Class 7A bracket as they strongly hold on to the seventh spot in the polls. Now, the Bobcats are the team with the target on their back and teams are hoping to produce to a good upset win against the Bobcats.
Not tonight.
It was a scoreless first half and the second half was up for the taking. However, with both offenses struggling to produce anything constructive and both defenses standing tall, it seemed as if a touchdown wouldn’t happen in this game.
Oakleaf marched down the field and put the first points on the board after quarterback Jordan Johnson threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Rontrez Morgan to take a 7-0 lead. At this point, it was the third quarter and the Knights looked like they packed enough armor to hold off the Buchholz offense and prevent them from scoring.
But Buchholz sophomore quarterback Camden Orth found Bryan Jaszczak deep down field for a 41-yard pass that set up a 34-yard field goal from Coby Weiss to make it 7-3.
The fourth quarter is where the Bobcats unleashed their late game rally routine.
Orth seemed to become a lot more comfortable behind his offensive line and had a lot more time to allow receivers to get open. He located Torrey Richardson on a six-yard touchdown pass to win the game, 10-7.
The sophomore quarterback completed 9 of 20 passes for 203 yards, compared to Oakleaf’s Jordan Johnson going 20-of-31 for a total of 259 yards. Buchholz only had six first downs—Oakleaf had 14 first downs.
Another week—Another Buchholz fourth quarter comeback.
The Bobcats clawed their way through this one starting out district play with a victory—When and where it matters the most.
UP NEXT: Next week, Buchholz (3-0, 1-0) hits the road en route to Ocala to take on a tough opponent in Vanguard while Oakleaf (2-2, 0-1) hosts Green Cove at 7 p.m.