Dunbar captures third straight district title with 22-19 win over Henry Clay
With a district title on the line and rival Henry Clay on the verge of a go-ahead score, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s defense held off one long, last Blue Devils’ drive via an interception by senior linebacker Mason Hayslett with under a minute to play to preserve a 22-19 win.
“(That’s) a bunch of Dunbar defense,” Hayslett explained after Friday night’s home win. “We fly around. We cover our zone. I saw the open man out of the corner of my eye. I drop back to get him and this (the football) falls right in my hands.”
Dunbar (4-4) ran out the clock on Henry Clay (3-5) and clinched the program’s third consecutive district championship, a run of success no other Bulldogs team has achieved. It did so with big plays from its offense, defense and special teams, which generated a momentum-shifting 89-yard kickoff return by Jaden Commodore in the fourth quarter.
But until Dunbar’s offense woke up in the third quarter, it looked like the Blue Devils would be the ones celebrating Friday night thanks in large part to three consecutive fumbles by the Bulldogs that helped stake Henry Clay to a 7-0 lead at half.
On two straight second quarter possessions, Dunbar fumbled away the ball on its own 17. Dunbar’s defense survived the first fumble, but could not keep Henry Clay quarterback Blake VanHorn from hitting Jackson Kreutzer in the end zone on the second chance for the opening score of the game.
On its next possession, Dunbar drove 56 yards on five plays only to fumble again just before Noah Chapman reached the goal line. That’s three fumbles in less than four minutes of action.
“I told my guys we played about as bad offensively as you could play and we were only down by seven at the half,” Dunbar Coach Wes Johnson said.
Henry Clay led 13-0 with 7:04 left in the third quarter after Jacob Childress broke tackles for a 39-yard touchdown run on the opening drive of the second half. The point-after attempt was blocked. Childress finished the game with 220 yards rushing and helped Henry Clay hold a whopping edge in time of possession. The Blue Devils had the ball for almost 37 minutes to Dunbar’s 11.
But as has been proven many times since Johnson took over in 2018, there’s no quit in these Bulldogs.
“I know I repeat this, but our guys always think we’re going to win,” Johnson said. “And that’s such a culture change from before when I got here. … Every time we go out there they just believe something is going to go our way and change the tide.
“A lot of teams down 13-0 would have folded. And we just continued to try to hang in there and continued to try to make plays and make things happen.”
Dunbar’s fast-paced no-huddle offense stood in stark contrast to Henry Clay’s deliberate and effective ball-control scheme, and when the Bulldogs finally clicked, they got back into the game.
Cole Colony led a four-play 73 yard drive capped by a 26-yard touchdown pass to Harrison Simpson to cut the Henry Clay lead to 13-7 midway through the third quarter.
Dunbar then stopped another long Henry Clay drive with a turnover on downs on their own 20. Dunbar drove 80 yards in one minute and 40 seconds to take a 14-13 lead after Colony pounded in the score from 2 yards out in the opening moments of the fourth quarter.
“We try not to get down too much. We’ve been there before. We know how to come back from it,” Colony said. “We knew we could run the ball on them, so that’s what we did.”
Childress answered for Henry Clay a few minutes later, capping an 85-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run for a 19-14 lead with 6:41 left in the game.
The ensuing kickoff landed in the hands of Dunbar’s Commodore, who swept behind his blockers from the left side of the field to the right sideline to travel 89 yards untouched for a score that helped Dunbar take a 22-19 lead after a two-point conversion by Noah Chapman with 6:26 to play.
“When I got the ball, I saw a bunch of guys in front of me and I knew they were going to get the job done blocking for me to go score a touchdown,” Commodore said. “Every time I touch the ball, the thing I think about is ‘end zone.’”
Henry Clay’s final drive culminated in a fourth down and 8 at Dunbar’s 12-yard line. VanHorn rolled out of the pocket under pressure and threw the ball intercepted by Hayslett with 44 second left.
“I think they are one of the best (defenses) we’ve ever had at Dunbar,” Colony said. “They get out there. They play so hard and even if they get behind the sticks, they keep fighting and just keep taking them down.”
