Leonardo
Credit to:
Jamie Baker, The Findlay Courier
ARLINGTON — From Mount Blanchard to Wharton and on over to Forest, there will be a lot of smiles at the breakfast table in Falcon Country Saturday morning.
That’s what beating your archrival will do.
Riverdale rallied to score a pair of touchdowns in the final 6:27 of the football game to knock off Arlington 31-28 in a season-opening thriller at Doc Castor Field Friday night.
It was an emotional win for Riverdale’s coaches and players alike.
“Do the tears tell you anything? To beat a quality program like this, in Week I is something special,” said Riverdale coach Jeremy Kloepfer. “We have a lot of respect for Arlington. The have kicked us around through the years and they kicked us around at times tonight. I’m proud of our kids for standing up at the end, they could have just gave up. They fought back and got it done,” he added.
Things weren’t looking good for the Falcons in the fourth quarter.
After leading most of the contest, Arlington’s bruising senior running back Cam Brown, who ground out 202 yards rushing on 32 carries, put the Red Devils on top 28-17 with his fourth touchdown of the night on a 15-yard scoring run with 7:49 left in the contest.
On Riverdale’s next possession, it was do-or-die.
Riverdale senior quarterback Brady Weber, who was 20 of 42 passing for 367 yards and four scores, threw three straight incompletions before hooking up withg Steven Rahn for a 10-yard gain on fourth down to extend the drive.
Three plays later, Weber found Rick Duffman open across the middle for a 58-yard scoring strike. The PAT pass failed leaving the Falcons still down 28-23 with 6:27 left.
Three straight Arlington running plays netted just four yards forcing the Red Devils to punt from their own 26 yardline.
Rahn broke through the line and and blocked the punt to give the Falcons the ball back at the Arlington 13.
“I just wanted to get in there and try to get a hand on the ball,” Rahn said. “I wanted to make a big play and get everyone excited.”
He saved his best heroics for last.
Three plays later, Rahn outjumped Arlington defender John Inniger in the endzone for a 13-yard touchdown catch on fourth down with 3:38 to play.
“They made plays and we didn’t. You get a punt blocked you’re going to lose that game,” said Arlington coach Dick Leonard. “We gave up too many big plays. You can’t give up the big play. Their athletes made plays and ours didn’t.”
Weber, meanwhile, was just 4 of 14 passing in the second half and despite his struggles, he was still confident he’d be able to come up with a big play at the end.
“My dad and my coach have always taught me to have a short memory,” Weber said with a smile. “That’s how I can succeed as a quarterback. That, and my teammates kept me up the entire game too.”
“I’ve been waiting since midgets. We played football against these guys since midget football and we couldn’t beat them then,” Weber said. “But we beat them tonight, we’ve waited a long time for this,” he added.
For Arlington, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire.
There’s little time to regroup and reflect as the young Red Devils jump into Blanchard Valley Conference play next week against Cory-Rawson at Spike Berry Field.
“We have some work to do. We’ll run them, we’ll lift and we’ll watch some film tomorrow. There’s a lot of good tonight too,” Leonard said. “But we have to cut down on mistakes and we have to execute better.”
congrats Falcons on a well-deserved and hard-fought victory!