By REID TUCKER
Freeport’s 34-33 win over Rocky Bayou Christian on the windy night of Nov. 8 put the wraps on a season that saw the Bulldogs improve 400 percent over last year’s winless campaign.
The Knights, who hosted Freeport on their home turf at Destin Middle School, led the visiting side 21-10 at halftime despite Freeport jumping out to an early 10-nothing lead, but the ‘Dogs bit back. They scored on every possession of the third quarter to take a narrow 28-27 lead after senior David Godwin turned in a highlight reel-worthy 88-yard kickoff return just before the end of the period.
Though Freeport scored again to go up 34-27 with 6:56 left in the game, Rocky proved it still had plenty of fight left, stringing together a 12-play drive to score on a touchdown pass from quarterback David Mareno with four seconds remaining in the game. When the point-after kick failed (probably due to the strong winds off the Choctawhatchee Bay), it looked like Freeport would get the close win with only an inevitable take-a-knee call to run out the clock remaining after Rocky Bayou kicked off. But that’s when things got interesting.
Rocky opted for an on-side kick and recovered the ball on the 44-yard line with 3 seconds to go, and very well could have scored the winning touchdown with Mareno nearly finding his favored mark, Josh Preston. However, a crazy comeback victory wasn’t in the cards for the Knights, as the Bulldogs got the pick around the 5-yard line, only to cough up the ball themselves, only to have Rocky Bayou drop it too. It was a mess of a scrum after that, but the clock ran out before any of the wild scrambling from both sides turned into an exchange of blows.
If ending the season in dramatic fashion was head coach Jim Anderson’s goal, he achieved it in spades, and hopes are high that next year’s Bulldogs team will get back in the black in the win-loss column after going 4-6 this year.
“We wanted to win that one for our four seniors,” Anderson told his troops in the post-game huddle. “It’s good to get the win. We’ve got to just keep getting better next year. We’ve got practically everyone coming back next year. The biggest thing we have to work on is getting bigger and stronger in the off-season, and of course we have to execute better and more consistently.”
Freeport’s scoring leader on the night was Godwin, who rushed 108 yards on 16 carries, including three touchdowns. Though it was Matthew Blair’s first-quarter field goal that put Freeport on the scoreboard, Godwin made it official with a 54-yard run with 3:18 to go in the period, giving Freeport the early lead. Godwin also scored on a 10-yard run with 5:27 to go in the third quarter before making his nearly 90-yard kickoff return a few minutes later.
Up next was Zack Seay, who led the Bulldogs on the ground offensive with 119 yards on 15 carries and two touchdowns – runs of 3 yards and 34 yards, and that latter one was Freeport’s winning score.
While Freeport favored the run, getting 264 of its 283 yards of total offensive output via the rushing game, Rocky Bayou was all about the passing game. Mareno hit his target 18 times out of 32 tries for a total of 326 yards through the air. He got two of his three touchdown passes to brothers Josh and Caleb Preston and he ran one to put Rocky ahead 21-10 at the intermission.
Freeport defensive coordinator Shaun Arntz had praise for the Bulldogs following the thriller of a finale, voicing the high hopes for next season felt in his camp.
“About the best thing you can take with you in the off-season when you don’t make the playoffs is a win, and we have that to go with us,” Arntz said “Now we’re going into the offseason and we have to do something with it. We need to take this win and build on it to start on top and finish on top next year. We have what we need to do it.”
