Ada comeback dooms district title hopes for Black Diamonds

Famed author Charles Dickens wrote the famous novel, “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Had Dickens been in attendance at Perry F. Lattimore Stadium for Friday night’s District 4A-4 title showdown between the visiting Ada Cougars and the host Sallisaw Black Diamonds, he likely could have written a book about the game and entitled it “A Tale of Two Halves.”

Trailing 20-0 at halftime in a first half where the Cougars could not muster anything — twice when they had the ball inside Sallisaw territory — the Cougars came out and shut out the Black Diamonds in the second half to the tune of 21-0 as they left town with a 21-20 come-from-behind victory to spoil Sallisaw’s Senior Night.

“We had a 20-0 lead at halftime, and had a complete meltdown in the second half,” Sallisaw coach Brandon Tyler said. “Our kids played well for 24 minutes, but unfortunately it’s a 48-minute ball game. Hats off to Ada coming back in the second half. I was proud of our effort. We just made way too many mistakes in the second half.”

The comeback gave the Cougars (9-1 overall, 6-1 in district play) a share of the district championship as they tied the Broken Bow Savages (91, 6-1) for first place, but since the Savages — who handled Poteau 36-14 on Friday night in Poteau — defeated the Cougars 42-14 on Oct. 24 at Broken Bow’s Memorial Stadium, the Savages will get the top seed from the district and entertain Wagoner in their Class 4A playoff opener, while the Cougars will end up with the No. 2 seed and a home playoff against the Fort Gibson Tigers at 7 p.m. next Friday at home.

The Black Diamonds (73, 5-2) ended up third and will travel to meet the Grove Ridgerunners (9-1) at 7 p.m. this Friday at Grove. The Black Diamonds opened last year’s playoffs with a 27-26 overtime win over the Ridgerunners at Perry F. Lattimore Stadium in a game in which Grove went for the win in OT and was stopped just outside the goal line by the Sallisaw defense.

“We got a whole new season starting,” Tyler said. “The road (to the state championship) got a lot tougher. We wanted to win the district and have two playoff games at home.”

Tyler said that he expects his team to bounce back like the Black Diamonds have done after each of the previous two losses — a six-game winning streak after losing the Zero Week opener to Pryor and routing Stilwell the week after losing in the rain to Poteau.

“We just have to regroup,” he said. “We have to go to work (this week) and see what happens.”

Down 20-0 beginning the second half, the Cougars got the second half kickoff and began their possession at their own 34 yard line with 11:56 left in the third quarter.

Thanks to a 27-yard run by quarterback Brock Boyles, the Cougars covered 66 yards with the last 31 yards coming on a touchdown pass from Boyles to Lakievin Richardson, who made the over-the-shoulder reception near the far left side of the end zone. However, placekicker David Stout had his extra-point attempt blocked, keeping the Cougars down 21-6 with 8:10 left in the period.

Thanks to a 17-yard kickoff return by Sallisaw return man Brodi Nickell, the Black Diamonds started at their own 41-yard line. Thanks to a roughing the passer penalty on Ada, the Black Diamonds drove as deep as the Ada 36-yard line, but the Cougars held, forcing a punt.

Sallisaw punter Cito Morales pinned the Cougars at their own 2-yard line with 3:19 remaining in the quarter.

Thanks to a 23-yard run by Caron Richardson, the Cougars drove into Sallisaw territory, only to see Boyles’ pass picked off by Sallisaw linebacker Logan Bethel, whose 4-yard return put the Black Diamonds at the Sallisaw 41-yard line. However, a penalty moved them back to their own 24 with 55 seconds left in the period — which when it ended saw the Cougars still down 216.

However, the Cougars stopped the Black Diamonds on that drive to force a punt, and they got the ball back at the Sallisaw 46-yard line with 9:47 left to play in the game.

The Cougars needed just less than two minutes to go 46 yards as Boyles connected with Lakievin Richardson for the second time, this time for an 8-yard TD pass. Stout hit the PAT to cut the Sallisaw lead to 20-13 with 7:58 remaining to play.

The Black Diamonds started the ensuing possession at their own 28 yard line with 7:52 left to play.

Thanks to a 35-yard pass from Sallisaw quarterback Kase Adams to Nickel, the Black Diamonds got as deep as the Ada 43-yard line, but the Black Diamonds shot themselves in the foot with penalties to stymie the drive.

With 4:49 remaining to play in the game, the Cougars took possession at their own 13-yard line.

Just 48 seconds later, the play of the game for the Cougars got them the lead for not only the first time but for good. Boyles hit Lakievin Richardson on an 88yard touchdown pass in which the receiver rambled about 50 yards down the Ada sideline to paydirt to cut the Ada deficit to 20-19.

On the scoring play, the Black Diamonds were called for a blindside hit, putting the ball at just outside the 1-yard line, so the Cougars decided to go for two points, and they got them on Caron Richardson’s run, to put Ada on top for the first time all game at 21-20 with 4:01 remaining in the game.

The Black Diamonds tried to rally as they got an 18-yard pass play from Adams to Jackson Harris and a 22-yard run off a lateral by Nickel to get them down to the Ada 26. However, on an attempted trick play of a wide receiver pass, Nickell was picked off by Ada strong safety Creed Moore who set Ada up at its own 33-yard line with 2:48 to play.

Thanks to converting one first down, the Cougars were able to run out the clock, and leave town as codistrict champions and the district runner-up as far as the playoffs were concerned.

Things started good for the Cougars in the first quarter. The Cougars recovered a Harris fumble at the Sallisaw 42-yard line with 10:44 left in the period, but they could do nothing with the takeaway and punted.

Off the punt, the Black Diamonds were pinned at their own 2-yard line with 9:38 remaining in the quarter.

The Cougars nearly got safeties on back-to-back plays, but in the end the Black Diamonds saw Morales punt from the back of the end zone. His punt set up shop for Ada at the Sallisaw 29-yard line with 9:10 left in the quarter.

The Cougars went for it on fourth down and were stopped at the Sallisaw 23-yard line, making it the second straight drive that got into Sallisaw territory but produced no points.

Seemingly mad at fumbling, Harris came out on fire and capped the 77-yard scoring drive with a 46-yard touchdown run with 4:54 remaining in the period.

Ethan Girdner’s extra point gave Sallisaw a 7-0 lead after the first 12 minutes.

After holding the Cougars on their next possession, the Black Diamonds got the ball at their own 11 yard line with 56 seconds left in the first quarter.

Thanks to a 58-yard run by Adams, the Black Diamonds got as deep as the Ada 3-yard line. However, the Cougars held, and forced a 20-yard field goal by Girdner with exactly nine minutes left to play in the first half to up Sallisaw’s advantage to 10-0.

After stopping Ada once more, Sallisaw took over the ensuing possession at the Ada 44-yard line with 7:39 remaining in the first half.

The Black Diamonds found the end zone once more as Kenyan Hill scored on a 24-yard TD run. Girdner’s PAT upped Sallisaw’s lead to 17-0 with 4:32 left in the first half.

The Cougars faced fourth down once more and went for it, only to be denied when Sallisaw defensive back Tae Muskrat-Flynn broke up Boyles’ pass for Owen Wofford to give the ball back to Sallisaw at the Sallisaw 48-yard line.

Thanks to a pair of Adams’ passes, a 23-yarder to Nickell and a pass to Caden Blount to get the red zone, the Black Diamonds once again threatened to get a touchdown as they drove as deep as the Ada 8 yard line. However, once again the Cougars held and forced the Black Diamonds to settle for a 25-yard field goal by Girdner to increase the Sallisaw advantage to 20-0 with 14 seconds remaining before halftime.

Thanks to a 34-yard kickoff return by Matthew Hutchins, the Cougars got themselves into “Hail Mary!” territory to try for a successful touchdown pass on the final play of the first half, but the pass was knocked down in the end zone to keep Sallisaw ahead 20-0 at halftime.

A big first-half injury for Sallisaw was losing offensive lineman Dagan Grizzle, who left the game and never returned.

“Losing Dagan hurt us up front,” Tyler said.