Red Devils shocked by 15-point, 4th quarter Morton comeback; lose Sectional semi-final 24-21
A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

Friday, Nov. 1, 2002 - 29 degrees, light winds in Hammond

Scoring Summary:

1st Q: LOWELL (7-0)  Justin Henley, 34-yard run (16th TD) 88-yard drive, 5 plays including a 46-yard run by Henley.  Tim Sova kick.
2nd Q: LOWELL (14-0) Chuck Thompson, 4-yard run (4th TD). 69-yard run, 6 plays including an 18-yard run by Toby Goetz.  4:40 left.
MORTON (14-6) Dan Jeffries, 5-yard pass (5th TD, 3rd TD catch) from Matt Kaftanich (16th TD pass).  70-yard drive including  a 25-yard pass from Kaftanich to William Wilkerson. Extra point blocked by Jeff Clemens.
3rd Q: LOWELL (21-6) Justin Henley, 72-yard run (17th TD). 72 yards. 1 play after Morton failed on a 4th-and-7 at the Lowell 28.   Tim Sova kick. 5:20 left.
4th Q: MORTON (21-12) Adam Keilman, 1-yard run (17th TD).
77 yards, 6 plays including a 27-yard pass from Keilman to David Chalmers.
2-point pass intercepted by Justin Henley. 11:21 left.
MORTON (21-18) Adam Keilman, 7-yard run (18th TD). 61 yards, 5 plays including a 46-yard run by Keilman. Extra point blocked by Jeff Clemens.  6:59 left.
MORTON (21-24) William Wilkerson, 12-yard pass (3rd TD catch) from Matt Kaftanich (17th TD pass) 52-yard drive, 7 plays after Justin Henley fumbled to Morton's Omar Diaz at the Morton 48.  1:44 left.

HAMMOND (11-1-2002) When you lead 21-6 going to the fourth quarter of a playoff game, you shouldn't ever lose. But when you lose five fumbles, you shouldn't ever win. In a game that will go down as an all-time classic, if you were one of the few Morton fans who braved subfreezing temperatures to show up, the Governors amazingly erased a 15-point deficit in the final 12 minutes to shock the visiting Red Devils into the basketball season 24-21 in a Sectional nine semifinal game.

The Governors, who have never won a sectional championship in the 30-year history of the Indiana state tournament, advanced to face defending section nine champ Griffith (8-3), a 62-6 winner over Hammond last Friday. The Governors won their 10th game in a season for the first time in 37 years because 1.) they never gave up and 2.) Lowell gave them all the chances they needed.

"We just didn't make the plays in the fourth quarter," said Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy. "And they did."

Coach Roy Richards, who began his four-year career at Morton with a 3-8 record in 1999, felt the win said something about the quality of his team, which built their 9-1 record on one of the state's worst schedules.

"You can say what you want about our competition," he said on the field in the Morton victory celebration. "There aren't too many kids who are going to make plays like Darion Reed, Matt Kaftanich and Adam Keilman."

Kaftanich and Keilman alternated at quarterback with Keilman gaining 169 yards rushing and Kaftanich throwing two TD passes. Reed was a major factor in another way. The 6-foot-3 Governor star wide receiver, a Division I college prospect who had gained 925 yards on 58 receptions in 10 games, suffered what was believed to be a dislocated hip on the first play of the game and will miss the rest of the season.

"For us to lose Darion on the first play of the game," said Richards, "and for it to be a such a painful injury. You could hear him screaming in pain. I thought our kids would go into a shell and, for awhile we did. We couldn't execute. We couldn't hold the ball and we were getting our butts kicked."

That might be selling Lowell a little short. The Red Devils stormed to leads of 14-0 and 21-6 on three long touchdown runs against a Morton defense that was clearly used to lesser teams. Red Devil junior Justin Henley carried 19 times for 199 yards and the Red Devils rolled up 304 yards on the ground.

But Lowell didn't deserve to win this game. The Devils, who lost 18 fumbles in nine regular season games, fumbled a punt, a kickoff and three plays from scrimmage. Lowell also did not cover a Morton onside kick in the second quarter, a play that had nothing to do with any scoring but was indicative of how mistake-prone Lowell was on this night. Henley's fumble at the Morton 48 on what could've been a game-clinching drive with 4:18 to play, led directly to the winning TD, a pass from Kaftanich to 1st-year football player William Wilkerson, who was filling in for the injured Reed.

But most of Lowell's mistakes prevented them from scoring. For three quarters, Lowell won the battle at the line of scrimmage. Scott Schulz fumbled a punt at the Lowell 37 after Morton's first possession and Chuck Thompson fumbled away Lowell's next possession at the Lowell 44.

Leading 7-0 early in the second quarter, Henley fumbled at midfield after Lowell had gained 32 yards on four running plays. The Red Devils gained 221 yards rushing and never punted in the first half, but led just 14-6 after two quarters.

The ultimate frustration came in the final minute of the half when Lowell ran a double reverse which ended with senior Nick Brill throwing a long pass to Matt Giglio, who was 20 yards behind the nearest Morton defender. But Giglio went down to one knee to make sure of the catch, killing a certain scoring play at the Morton 10-yard line. An intentional grounding penalty backed the Devils up and Tim Sova's 40-yard field goal fell short.

The second half was a spectacular show in the biting cold by the unorthodox Morton offense. With Kafatanich and Keilman alternating plays at QB, Morton finally realized that the tiring Devils could not stop Keilman, a 6-0, 180-pound broken field running star. After being held to 14 yards on 10 carries in the first half, Keilman gained 155 yards on 16 runs in the second half. The biggest play of the game was was a quarterback draw on 3rd-and 7 from the Morton 46. At least three Devils seemed to have Keilman stopped, but he broke free and gained 46 yards to the Lowell 7-yard-line. Keilman scored one play later to make it 21-18 with 5:02 left.

The final TD was a fading, 12-yard Kaftanich pass to the visitors side of the field that the 6-foot Wilkerson caught turning away from the 5-9 Henley, the Lowell defensive back. Wilkerson and David Chalmers (5-11, 170) used their height against the smaller Lowell DBs, to roll up 166 yards passing.

"I don't remember being behind 15 points and coming back to win," said Richards. "But with these players, you don't feel like you're 15 behind. We didn't have Uriah Austin (147 carries, 1,010 yards) because he sprained an ankle in practice. We played Danny Jeffries (5-9, 175). He just came back after missing three games. Then he tore a nail off one of the fingers on his hand so we had no tailbacks. We put Keilman in at tailback. That was something we'd worked on during the week after Uriah got hurt and that's not a bad thing at all."

Having a lot of players go both ways against the bigger Morton linemen and receivers hurt Lowell a little but giving the ball away hurt them a lot. With any type of precision, Lowell should've scored at least four touchdowns and iced the game by half-time.

"When we look at the film," said Kennedy, "I'm sure we'll see a lot of other mistakes we made. They made a lot of mistakes too. But this game's all about making plays and we didn't make any late in the game."

DEVIL NOTES: About 500 fans watched the Lowell-Morton game. Temperatures dropped from about 35 degrees at kickoff to 28 at 10 p.m. Reed's injury was difficult to explain. He did not appear to be hit hard after missing a pass on the first play. Morton dropped several passes in the game. No one used it as an excuse but the dropped passes and fumbles (Morton had two) may have been caused by the weather. The Governors were clearly trying to strip the ball from the Devils. A crucial play came when Morton bounced a squib kickoff to Jim Jeffries with the score 21-12 in the fourth quarter. Jeffries raced over the Lowell 45 and hurdled a tackler, only to have Morton strip him of the football.   Justin Henley was breaking through a hole for what should've been a long touchdown run when he lost the ball at midfield with 8:21 left in the first half.

Lowell ended the season losing three of their last four games while Morton won for the ninth week in a row.  Morton won the Lake Athletic Conference (LAC) Blue division, a league that is intentionally stocked with lesser football programs. The better LAC football schools play in the Black division, where Lowell resides. After winning the LAC Blue the last two years, Morton 'graduates' to the Black Division next year, and they will become an annual opponent of Lowell.  Justin Henley's unofficial 2002 season numbers are: 227 carries - 1,412 yards.  This was the first time in coach Kirk Kennedy's 12 years in Lowell that the Red Devils have lost a game where they gained 290 yards rushing.