The Haughton Bucs knocked off the Byrd Yellow Jackets 36-35 in overtime in a District 1-5A opener Friday night at Prescott Field at Harold E. Harlan Stadium.
Haughton improved to 1-1 overall. Byrd dropped to 0-2.
The Bucs avenged a 49-14 loss to the Jackets last year in Matthew Sewell’s first season as head coach.
“It’s a big win and I couldn’t be more proud and happier for our kids and our coaches,” Sewell said.
Haughton tied the game on a 60-yard pass from Taylor Weathersby to Ethan Johnson and Connor Bencke’s fourth extra-point kick with 5:08 left in the game.
The Bucs defense got a stop. Haughton got a penalty and ran out the clock.
Byrd went on offense first in overtime and quickly scored a touchdown with the help of a facemask penalty.
Haughton then got its turn. The Jackets also got a face mask penalty and Brandon Craig scored.
Sewell then elected to go for two. Weathersby passed to Case Corkern in the back of the end zone and the celebration began.
Sewell said there was never any doubt the Bucs would go for two.
“We actually talked about it doing it earlier in the fourth quarter when we had the ball,” he said. “We score here we’re going to go for two. Then we kind of scored too quick. We had our defense back on the field. And they got a stop for us at the end of the game and that kind of got us to overtime.
“Once we got into overtime we were going to go on defense first. No matter what happened if we scored in that second period we were going to go for two. Fortunately, Coach (Cody) Taylor called a great play and we executed it well.”
Both teams put up big offensive numbers.
Johnson had 12 catches for 290 yards and three touchdowns.
“He’s just a good football player,” Sewell said. “Him and Taylor Weathersby, they just have a great connection. They’ve had it since they were freshmen. They throw all the time.
“He was able to get open and Taylor was able to find him. They do a great job of finding him on broken plays too. Really proud of him. He had a great night.”
Weathersby completed 14-of-27 passes for 301 yards. His other two touchdown passes to Johnson covered 37 and 36 yards
Craig rushed for 153 yards on 25 carries. He scored on a 30-yard run.
Byrd’s Collin Deere rushed for 253 yards on 35 carries and four touchdowns. Christian Maxie had 88 yards on eight carries and a touchdown.
With its veer option offense, the Jackets put the ball in the air only twice with no completions.
“We got a couple of stops and that’s all you can ask for sometimes with them because they’re so well-coached with (Head) Coach (Stacy) Bellew and on offense by Coach (Wade) Leone,” Sewell said. “They just don’t make a lot of mistakes. When they get that offense going especially when they have a great fullback like they do right now.
“Deere is an awesome high school football player. He’s hard to tackle. They were feeding him tonight. We were just fortunate to get enough stops to give us a chance to win.”
Haughton trailed 13-7 at the half and that’s the way it stood at the end of the third quarter.
The Bucs went up 14-13 on Weathersby’s 36-yard TD pass to Johnson and Bencke’s kick with 11:14 left.
Byrd answered with a touchdown and two-point conversion with 9:54 left. The Jackets took the lead on a long run with 7:17 to play before the Bucs scored on the final TD pass to Johnson.
Haughton visits Parkway Thursday. The Panthers (2-0) defeated Woodlawn 56-6 Friday night.