Mary G. Montgomery quarterback Shondell Harris tries to elude Baker defenders, including Jaylan Morris (5) during the Vikings’ 34-31 overtime victory at Clem Richardson Stadium Friday night. (Tom Deck/Call News)
Jubilant Mary G. Montgomery players celebrate after Shondell Harris’ 2-yard touchdown run in overtime lifted the Vikings to a 34-31 win over Baker Friday night. (Tom Deck/Call News)
Mary G. Montgomery coach Zach Golson watches the action during the Vikings’ 34-31 overtime victory over Baker Friday night. Golson made a couple of bold calls on fourth-and-2: One in which quarterback Shondell Harris was stopped early in the game deep in Vikings territory and the other going for the win in overtime, when Harris scored. (Tom Deck/Call News)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
MOBILE — Shondell Harris heard that he isn’t a quarterback. Perhaps that should be amended to say he isn’t only a quarterback.
Baker, which had the best defense in Class 7A against the score, did everything it could to rip the living heart out of Mary G. Montgomery Friday night but discovered that there is no dull side to the perfectly balanced blade that is Shondell (The Show) Harris, who relentlessly bled the Hornets even as the Vikings fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter and trailed 28-14 going into the fourth quarter.
With one foot in the grave and one arm and the other foot delivering staggering blows, Harris led MGM back to a 34-31 victory, turning what could have been a disastrous fourth-down play and defeat into the winning 2-yard touchdown run in overtime.
Baker’s Blayne Munson kicked a 20-yard field goal on the first possession in overtime to give the Hornets a 31-28 lead.
When the Vikings got the ball, they faced fourth-and-goal from the 2 and coach Zach Golson went for the win instead of the tie, calling a Q lead to the wide side of the field, to Harris’ left. But the short side splayed open and Harris immediately pivoted to his right and plowed through to the end zone behind offensive lineman Kyle Thomas before being swarmed by his jubilant teammates.
It was the only time Mary Montgomery led in the game as the Vikings (8-1, 6-0 7A Region 1) claimed their 16th straight region victory and 26th win in the last 29 games.
“He has such great instincts,” Golson said of Harris. “He found a hole and found his way in there. It was a great game. Baker has a really good team. They’re very good on defense. I never felt like we had them where we wanted them, I’ll tell you that. But I did trust in our guys, I believed in our guys. If we just kept staying the course and executing, we’d find a way.”
Harris said he was going to celebrate winning the game and the region crown with the breakfast of champions.
“I’m going to Waffle House with my teammates and then I’m going home and going to bed because I’ve got work in the morning,” said Harris, who ran for 106 yards on 17 carries and two touchdowns and was 11-of-21 passing for 156 yards and another score.
Thomas said the final play was supposed to go the other way but he was blocking and didn’t actually see who ran into him from behind, although he had a good idea who it was.
“I was really surprised when he ended up coming up my butt,” Thomas said. “I really don’t know what happened but I know he just ran right into me and I pancaked the guy. Shondell’s a really great athlete, so he’s able to do things like that, kind of change the play into something.”
Harris — who actually has more yardage passing (1,314) than running (1,173) in his career — was magnificent in the fourth quarter and overtime, keeping or throwing on 15 of the last 22 plays. Incredibly, MGM had 11 of its 20 first downs in the fourth quarter on the way to improving to 10-0 under Golson when scoring 30-plus points.
Golson said Harris wanted to prove those who doubt his ability as a quarterback wrong.
“He was really excited about the opportunity to show that he’s more than just a runner,” Golson said. “I think that has been kind of the word out there that he’s just a running back and he was talking about that. He made some really big throws.”
Harris, a junior in his first season as Mary Montgomery’s starting quarterback, savored the victory in a showdown of the top two defenses in Class 7A.
“I did run a lot but I just took what they gave me,” he said. “They can call me what they want but I know what I am deep down.”
Thomas said some of the Hornets’ players talked smack about Harris’ passing skills during the game.
“They were yapping during the game, saying he don’t want to pass or he just wants to run,” Thomas said. “He just used that as a little added motivation and he did his thing. They were saying stuff like, ‘Hey, you going to throw the ball?”’
And he did, knowing Baker likes to blitz and play a lot of man coverage.
Does a running back playing quarterback convert two third downs with 26- and 25-yard completions to Shermar Elston and Jaiden Smith, respectively, in the third quarter? Or lead a 65-yard drive before finding Elston for an 18-yard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 28-21 with 10:33 remaining? Or have completions of 25 yards to Smith, 10 and 14 yards to Elston and hurl a perfect deep ball to T.J. Collier, who got open behind a defender but failed to reel in what would have been an 81-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter?
“They gave us some coverage that was zero-type coverage or just true one-on-one type coverage,” Golson said. “And we’ve got good playmakers, we’ve just got to give them a chance to go make those plays. Baker’s done a good job all year covering guys. We had some opportunities tonight to go win some of those matchups.”
Later in the fourth quarter, Harris dug his team out of a hole after Munson orbited a 58-yard punt to the Vikings’ 10, leading a clutch 90-yard, 10-play drive that featured two pass interference penalties against Baker on deep balls before Thomas White scored from 8 yards out to tie it 28-28 with 4:03 to go.
Defensive back Aaron Hill, who had a coverage bust that allowed the Hornets’ Jailen Wheeler to score on a 64-yard pass from Tate Graham late in the third quarter to give Baker a 28-14 lead, intercepted Graham at the Hornets’ 46 with 3:18 to play and Harris drove MGM to the 11 before Cooper Williams missed what would have been the winning 28-yard field goal with 35 seconds left in regulation.
“The guys asked for us to go for it right there at the end of regulation but we wanted to give our kicker a chance,” Golson said.
MGM defensive coordinator Alex Page said Hill and Harris each atoned for defensive mistakes against Wheeler. Harris, who was in at safety, missed a tackle that allowed Wheeler to race 60 yards on the third play of the third quarter to make it 21-7.
“I ain’t sure if we ran around a block or overran it,” Page said. “Shondell ended up missing the tackle, so I told him he had to get one back for us on offense — and he did. Then Aaron had a mental bust and gave up a touchdown but he came back and got the pick. To get that interception back, to give our offense a chance, it was big in a sense they didn’t drive and run the clock.”
The Vikings fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter after Golson boldly went for it on fourth-and-2 from MGM’s 28 on its first possession, only to see Harris stopped for a four-yard loss on a keeper to the left.
Golson had no regrets taking such a risk so early.
“I was just trusting our guys to get first downs,” Golson said. “Hats off to Baker. They made a great play there. They tackled well, especially early. I knew there was gonna be a lot of possessions in the game. We’ve shown that since day one when we got here, we’re gonna be aggressive in how we play the game and I think our kids play like that. And I think that helps us when we get in late moments like this.”
The Vikings managed only 48 yards rushing in the first quarter but finished with 226.
“They had a lot of juice,” Thomas said of Baker (6-2, 5-1). “They were doing some things that we weren’t prepared for. I felt like we were a little too cocky, a little too amped up maybe. And they punched us in the mouth and we answered. They’re playing really fast. They were slanting gaps. Everything was kind of off a little bit. We just had to settle in.”
Observed offensive tackle Jon Stephens: “Their defense really was impressive early on. They were playing faster than us. And they brought the intensity, for sure.”
Harris said MGM started getting comfortable in the second quarter.
“They did a lot defensively but we adjusted to it and they couldn’t handle it,” Harris said. “When we came back out of the half, we just kept executing and kept finishing. Our word for the week was relentless and everybody just gave relentless effort. We just stayed dialed in to each other. We just kept believing in our O-line. We just kept believing in our run game. If we executed in our run game, we were unstoppable.”
While Mary Montgomery outgained the Hornets 410 yards to 294, Wheeler ran for 147 yards on 18 carries and scored on runs of 8 and 31 yards in the first quarter, then erupted for the 60-yard TD run and the 64-yard scoring pass in the second half.
Page said the Vikings had to switch to the second of two game plans after Baker seized the big early lead.
“The first one that we rolled out there was a little more tailored to a passing game and they found some of the run weaknesses in that, so we had to get out of that and went more back to who we really are and just kind of worked the right guys in the right spots from there,” Page said. “We put a little more speed on the edge and really contained that edge because that buck sweep they were running was giving us a problem.”
Baker coach Juan Johnson found the loss difficult to accept.
“I’m really proud of the way my kids played,” he said. “They did a tremendous job trying to execute the game plan. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t find a way to finish and that’s on me. It comes down to making plays. They made one more play than us tonight. We’re just trying to take it to the next step, to put Baker where it should be.”
Elston had six receptions for 102 yards, including a diving 6-yard TD pass from Harris in the second quarter, but Golson said his team must clean up its ongoing penalty problems if it hopes to contend for the state championship. MGM had 12 penalties for 109 yards.
“There’s a lot of things we gotta get fixed if we want make any kind of run in the playoffs,” he said. “We do have a good team, we’re talented, but we’ve gotta cut out penalties. I think the refs are already conscious that we’re a little chippy and we’ve just gotta cut that. That’s not who we want to be. It’s not how we built our program and our kids know better. If we’ll continue to execute and line up and operate, we can play with anybody in the state, minus the penalties.”
