BLACKSVILLE — Sean Hays laid face down on the 11-yard line looking every bit like a young man who needed a break.
“I wasn’t really hurt, just tired a little bit,” Clay-Battelle’s fullback said.
C-B head coach Ryan Wilson, not wanting to risk Hays having to sit out a play, called a timeout.
“I was afraid the official was going to say he was injured,” Wilson said. “I called the timeout so he wouldn’t have to come off the field.”
On the next play, Hays burst through the left side, broke a couple of tackles and scored the go-ahead touchdown in the Cee-Bees’ 28-15 victory against Meadow Bridge on Friday.
“Yeah, it was a good timeout,” Hays said. “I needed a break.”
For good reason. On a muggy night, Hays toted the ball 36 times, many of them while carrying two or three Wildcats defenders.
He rushed for 155 yards and three touchdowns in a game where there were several standouts.
“Oh God, no one else was getting the ball there,” Wilson said. “We were going to ride our horse as far as he would take us right there.”
While Hays’ offensive stats stood out, it may have been his forced fumble with 6:43 left in the third quarter that was the play of the game.
With the game tied at 15, Meadow Bride was in the midst of taking the momentum after quarterback Dustin Adkins scampered for 17 yards up the middle on a draw play.
Nick White rushed for another 13 on the next play, but while White was at full speed, Hays came at him and simply stripped him of the ball.
Seth Casino picked it up and returned it into Meadow Bride territory, which set up Hays’ go-ahead touchdown run.
“Seth made a great play on the strip and the ball just bounced right to me,” said Casino, who added two interceptions to go along with his fumble recovery. “We were working to keep our heads high at that point, but there were running pretty well against us. That play was really big for us.”
For good measure, Hays also added a fumble recovery of his own on a muffed Meadow Bridge punt in the first quarter. He returned that one to the Wildcats’ 14, which set up Hays’ first scoring a run, a 7-yarder — that gave the Cee-Bees (1-1) an early 8-0 lead.
On the night, Clay-Battelle forced two fumbles, Bryan Enoff blocked a punt and recorded three quarterback sacks, Cadon Skavinsky also had an interception to go along with Casino’s two and the Cee-Bees also came up with a stuff on a fourth-and-1 play early in the fourth quarter.
“Defense was a key for us,” Wilson said. “We had so many turnovers last week (in a loss at Gilmer County), but our defense turned that around. Tonight, we forced the turnovers and made most of the plays we needed to.”
Hays second scoring run — a 15-yarder with 3:09 left in the second quarter — gave C-B a 15-0 lead.
Meadow Bride responded with a 7-yard TD reun by White to end the first half and then Sdkins connected with Ayden Reddon on a 32-yard scoring pass to tie the game with 8:54 remaining in the third.
After forcing a C-B punt, it looked like Meadow Bride was about to take control, until Hays’ strip.
“That was huge for us,” Wilson said. “They score to tie the game and we were not doing anything.”
Adkins finished with 178 yards passing to lead the Wildcats.
C-B freshman Carson Shriver put the game out of reach with a 36-yard scoring run with 6:09 left in the game.
