Mitchell's kick lifts HHS to win in OT

By: Allen Haynes | Hickory Daily Record
Published: September 17, 2011

HICKORY --

Football games are usually measured by the number of yards gained, but sometimes it simply comes down to a player’s foot.

Hickory High survived Friday night thanks to a foot and defeated visiting Winston-Salem Reagan 16-13 in overtime at Frank Barger Stadium.

The Red Tornadoes needed a 45-yard field goal from James Mitchell with 18 seconds left in regulation to force overtime and have a shot at the win.

Then, after holding the Raiders to a field goal, Hickory scored on its first overtime play on a 10-yard run by Shaquan Reid, who gained 101 yards on 22 carries to clear 2,000 career rushing yards.

Hickory (3-1-1) started the drive that tied the game on its 25 and moved downfield behind the running and passing of quarterback Kyle Johnson.

Back-to-back runs of 9 and 17 yards from Johnson put the Red Tornadoes in striking distance, and a 9-yard pass to Daniel Davis put Hickory in a position for the tying field goal.

“The entire time we were driving down the field, I was warming up, just hoping they would get far enough for me to have a shot,” a smiling Mitchell said after the game. “When I got the chance, I just went out and did my thing.

“I’ve really worked hard in the off season and I knew that I could do it. So I looked down at the ball and kicked it and didn’t look up until they (his teammates) yelled.”

The 45-yarder was a career-long for Mitchell, who hit a 35-yarder last year.

Hickory opened the scoring on a Jordan Lockhart 3-yard run to cap a 10-play, 61-yard drive and put the Red Tornadoes up 7-0 with just over nine minutes left in the first half.

Reagan (1-4) scored with 2:35 left in the half on a 37-yard field goal by Brian Saakvitne to trim the Hickory lead to 7-3.

Hickory’s defense played well in the first half, allowing only 78 yards and continued that success into the third quarter.

“Our defense really stepped, but our offense left points on the table,” said Hickory head coach John Worley. “We had a touchdown called back, missed another and then dropped one.

“But what we did do was hang in there. When they got points on the board, we came back and James hit the field goal to tie it.”

Reagan had scored on a 20-yard pass from quarterback Ja’Shaun Joyner to Jaylan Snelson to put the Raiders on top 10-7 with 2:43 left to play.

That set up the game-tying drive for Hickory.

“I thought we played hard for four quarters and that was out goal,” Worley said. “We knew going in that they were a big 4A team that two-platooned and they had some really good players. So we came in feeling like we were the underdog.

“We saw them on film and they had played some people tough and felt like they had a good team.”