Gretna headed to state finals

GRETNA — As the Gretna Hawks were celebrating a fourth-down stop with nine seconds left in the game, Essex junior quarterback Lyndon Garner sat at the 11-yard line dejected and measuring the short, yet long, six yards that he needed to get for a first down to give the Trojans just one last chance to beat Gretna.

It was a broken play that forced Garner to escape the pocket and then try to make a play out of nothing, but resulted in a thrilling 45-40 loss to the defending state champions.

“A slant route gone wrong,” Garner said. “(The receiver) kept running when he was supposed to run a slant, he should have kept going to the end zone.”

And just like that, the team that scored the most points on the Hawks this season and amassed 550 total yards of offense was dealt its first loss and an exit from the state playoffs.

“Just a great game, we left it on the field — everything on the field,” Essex coach Todd Jones said. “This is what high school football is about. Proud of my kids, tip my hat to coach Thurman and Gretna, they played harder.”

The Trojans (12-1) did not let the Hawks blow them out early after Gretna (12-1) scored two touchdowns in the first five minutes to take a 12-0 lead. Essex rode the backs of three juniors to keep the game close. Garner hooked up with wide receiver Devante Baker four times for 188 yards and a touchdown, as the 5-foot-11 wideout took advantage of Gretna’s smaller defensive backs to grab lob passes for huge gains.

“They have no safeties. In one-on-one, the dude couldn’t guard me, so I told them to give me the ball,” Baker said. “We worked hard everyday in practice and came out here and played as a team, but we just came up short.”

Garner finished 12 of 22 passing for 253 yards and two touchdowns, the second one to tight end Danzell Gaines. Garner also rushed for 36 yards and a touchdown, using many quarterback runs out of the shotgun similar to how the Hawks use Jayme Barksdale.

“They’re a good team though,” Barksdale said. “They gave us a good run, but I just guess we wanted it more.”

The other junior was running back Chuck Samuel, who gave the Hawks’ defense fits all day. The 6-foot-1, 197-pound back bruised his way for 176 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries.

“That is a heck of a football team and they gave us all we wanted for 48 minutes,” Gretna coach Chris Thurman said. “You know, give coach Jones and his staff a lot of credit. They came and they played their hearts out.”

Gretna settled down on defense in the second half by shutting down the Trojans’ passing attack. Garner threw for only 53 yards in the second half, but the running game totaled 163 of its 297 yards in the third and fourth quarters.

But after Essex took its largest lead of the day at 40-33 with less than three minutes left in the third quarter, its offense had three possessions, which resulted in a punt and two failed fourth-down conversions.

“We gave them a great run. We played hard, left everything on the field,” Garner said. “Just the better team won today.”