Despite trailing throughout the entire game against Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier foe Liberty on Friday night, the Garfield G-Men football team stormed back and stunned their league foes with a game-winning drive to claim a 35-34 victory at Leopard Stadium in Youngstown.
“I think it just says a lot about our kids,” Coach Mike Moser said. “Things did not look good, and I get it, but I never sensed that our kids were giving up. Liberty is an outstanding football team and were making plays, our guys were competing, and they were trying, and the Liberty guys were still just making plays, but I never felt that our guys gave up.”
Trailing 34-14 in the third quarter, the G-Men (6-1, 4-0) started their comeback by engineering some successful drives and getting timely stops on defense.
After Garfield trimmed its deficit to 34-28, the Leopards had a chance to put the game away, getting the ball with three minutes left on the clock, but the G-Men’s defense stiffened once more, giving themselves one more chance.
“We only had three timeout lefts and I thought we did a nice job of using our timeouts so they could not milk the whole game away and we did a nice job to at least save ourselves some minutes,” noted the 13-year coach. “We got big defensive plays; we got a sack in there and a tackle for a loss and they quick kicked on us.
Garfield received the ball at their own 20 with only 1:27 remaining in regulation and one timeout at their disposal.
The G-Men marched down the field to advance the ball to Liberty’s 26 with 7.9 seconds left on the clock.
Senior quarterback/defensive back Jack Neikirk connected with senior wide receiver/tailback/defensive Brandyn Bogucki on a 26-yard touchdown strike, tying the score at 34-34 with 1.7 seconds remaining.
“If we were going to draw it up, that is how we would have done it,” Moser said. “Brandyn ran like a post corner, and he went in and then broke back out, and the kid might have had his feet get tangled up or something on the break back out. The safety was coming over the top as well, but Brandyn was able to get there.”
Junior kicker Hannah Timmons drilled the extra point, giving the G-Men their first lead of the night with a 35-34 advantage, completing the biggest comeback victory of their season by going on a 21-0 run after facing a 20-point deficit in the third period to remain undefeated in conference play and extending their MVAC Grey Tier winning streak to 19 games.
Traditionally a power running team, the G-Men diversified their offensive attack to come back against Liberty, led by Neikirk who completed 11 of 15 passes for 230 yards and two touchdowns.
According to Moser, the 6-foot-2 Neikirk was surgical on the G-Men’s game-winning drive.
“The whole night does not happen without Jack’s leadership,” he added. “He stood in and made some big throws under pressure and took some big hits after delivering the ball. None of that happens without Jack keeping a calm head and standing in there, staring down the barrel and taking those shots and delivering the ball.”
In a game where so much had gone wrong for Garfield, things seemed to change in the blink of an eye in the third quarter after the Leopards recovered a bad snap by the G-Men and recovered the loose ball in the end zone, pushing their lead to 34-14.
After that play, Garfield turned the tide in their favor as they limited their mistakes for the rest of the game. Moser acknowledged that the G-Men staged their comeback by digging deep into their bag of offensive play calls to finally string together some successful drives, which included attacking Liberty’s defense through the air.
“We threw the ball 15 times; for us that is quite a bit. Jack completed 11 of those and he hit some big shots. We hit a couple of hook-and-ladders in there and Brandyn had a huge night catching the ball,” he added. “We can do those types of things too when we are forced to and we still didn’t abandon the running game.”
Garfield’s rushing attack did not go away, recording 246 yards and three touchdowns from their stable of tailbacks, but it was ultimately some precise passing from Neikirk that helped seal the G-Men’s comeback.
The G-Men will go into week eight with a road duel against MVAC Grey Tier rival Newton Falls at Newton Falls Stadium in Trumbull County on Friday evening at 7 p.m.
