Fort Mill head coach Rob McNeely said he and his coaching staff would take the responsibility for his team’s loss to Clover High School at Bob Jones Stadium in Fort Mill.
The Yellow Jackets led by 16 early in the third quarter, but the visiting Blue Eagles mounted a second-half comeback that included three touchdowns in the final 15 minutes of action for a 27-26 win.
“First and foremost, we as coaches have to look at the man in the mirror,” McNeely said, following Friday’s game. “We need to learn from our mistakes before we put the onus on the players.”
Broden Mitcheson’s touchdown run gave Fort Mill a 23-7 edge early in the third quarter, but Clover outscored Fort Mill 20-3 down the stretch. Clover’s Braxton Goodman hauled in scoring passes of 29 and 82 yards from quarterback Aaron Shealey, and Shealey found Latrell Ellison for a momentous 25-yard score with 2:12 remaining to take the lead.
Fort Mill had a chance to march back down the field with two minutes left, but quarterback Quinn Kelly fumbled the ball on a quarterback keeper play on the drive’s opening play, and the Blue Eagles ran out the clock.
With the win, Clover improves to 4-2, 1-1 in Region 3-5A, while Fort Mill falls to 4-2, 0-2.
Kelly (19-of-30 passing, 183 passing yards, 1 INT, 1 TD) tallied 47 rushing yards on 17 carries. Mitcheson (1 receiving TD, 1 rushing TD) totaled 97 all-purpose yards between the ground and the air. Josiah McKinzie led his team’s receivers with 41 yards on five catches, while Jameson Terrell (38 yards on 3 catches) and Henry Crocker (31 yards on 4 catches) also featured.
“As players, they’ve got to show up and do the work,” said McNeely, who praised Mitcheson’s toughness. “We told them that if everyone showed up and worked harder, how would this team look?”
Fort Mill showed strength in all phases of the game in the first half and took advantage of a punt block to take the lead.
After holding Clover’s offense to just 30 yards in its opening drive, Josiah McGill blocked the ensuing fourth-down punt. Gray Patterson snagged the bobbling ball on the Clover 20 and ran it back to put Fort Mill up 6-0. Kicker Noah Hardy wasn’t able to attempt a point-after attempt due to a miscue on the snap.
The teams traded possessions until Clover finally turned defense into offense.
Clover’s defense stopped Fort Mill on a gutsy 4th and 3 on Fort Mill’s own 34, leading to a turnover on downs.
Clover quarterback Aaron Shealey took advantage of the short field heading the other way. He improvised on a busted pass play on the 12, bullying his way through the middle of the field and leaping over a defender to give Clover the lead with four minutes left in the first quarter.
McNeely said his call to go for it on fourth down led to Clover’s first touchdown, saying it was a “lame-brained decision.”
“That comes down to us as coaches,” he said. “This one is as much my fault as anybody’s.”
Fort Mill nearly responded on the next drive. Kelly led Fort Mill from its own about 65 yards downfield with throws to Crocker and McKinzie, as well as a fortunate facemask call on Clover to push into the red zone. But Kelly was picked off, trying to find a receiver on the goal line from the 17.
Fort Mill’s defense rose up again on the first play of the second quarter. The Yellow Jackets forced a fumble on a Clover running back to take the ball back around midfield. Kelly used his feet to push his team from the Clover 47 to the 6 but couldn’t find an open receiver to score.
Kicker Noah Hardy converted a 22-yard chip shot to give Fort Mill a 9-7 lead with 10 minutes to play in the second quarter.
The Yellow Jackets forced another three-and-out on the next drive, then launched a 66-yard drive that lasted nearly five minutes to pad their lead. Kelly found Terrell for a big 20-yard conversion, then paired that with a 19-yard dart to Mitcheson to convert on 3rd and long. He connected with Mitcheson one last time from 13 yards out to give Fort Mill a 16-7 lead.
Fort Mill had one last chance at points with less than 1:30 left in the half. Kelly found Terrell for a chunk play over the middle, and Mitcheson converted a clutch third-down play, setting up Hardy for a 49-yard field goal attempt with 6.6 seconds left, but the junior hit the left upright.
Fort Mill scored on the opening drive of the first half, thanks to Mitcheson’s downhill runs. Kelly’s 23-yard to McKinzie set the Jackets up inside the red zone, and Mitcheson finished off the 8-play drive from just a few yards out to give Fort Mill a 23-7 lead.
Two possessions later, Clover was back in contention. Shealey spotted Goodman over the middle from 29 yards away to cut the lead to 23-13 following a missed two-point conversion.
Just five plays into the fourth quarter, Shealey connected with Goodman again, this time from 82 yards out. Goodman outstripped his defender and easily made his way to the end zone and cut the Fort Mill lead to 23-20 with 11 minutes left to play.
Hardy hit a 37-yard field goal, but it left the door open for the visitors.
And Clover used every second of a four-minute drive to drive 80 yards on 14 plays before Shealey found Ellison over the middle for a 25-yard touchdown. Tristan Bigham’s extra point gave Clover its final lead.
With 2:05 left on the clock, Fort Mill had one last chance to respond, but Kelly’s fumble ended Fort Mill’s hope of a comeback before it began.
“Every week’s going to be hard,” McNeely said, looking ahead to the rest of the region schedule. “Everything that this team wants is on the other side of hard. We’ve got to put in the work.”
Fort Mill will play on the road at District 3 Stadium in Rock Hill the next two weeks: the Yellow Jackets will play Rock Hill Oct. 3 and Northwestern Oct. 10.
