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Williamstown rallies over Buffalo Bison

BUFFALO — Buffalo was just about ready to sign off on that signature win against a power program, but Williamstown had other plans.

Backup quarterback Carter Haynes led the Yellowjackets on a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown drives and Donathan Taylor scored on a 9-yard run with 1:21 left in the game Friday night, giving Williamstown a wild 39-34 comeback victory in a battle of Class A contenders. It was the first loss of the season for the Bison (5-1).

Haynes, a sophomore, was thrust into the game when Williamstown all-stater Trenton Tallman suffered a hip pointer late in the second quarter and never returned. Tallman had scored three touchdowns at that point — one on a 93-yard kickoff return — as the teams went into halftime tied at 27.

Yellowjackets coach Terry Smith said his players weren’t deflated by the potentially-calamitous loss of Tallman.

“We do all that running and lifting and stuff,” Smith said, “and we figured there’s nothing we can do about it. We have to play. We can’t just turn our stuff in. Trenton’s been a leader for us, and the kids just wanted to win it for him, I guess.

“I think we tried to stay out of all that fourth-quarter stuff, that coaches’ B.S., and we came out OK.”

The loss marred an outstanding game by Buffalo senior running back Dylan Lucas, who carried 36 times for 238 yards and three touchdowns, one of them covering 69 yards. He also caught four passes for 58 yards.

Lucas was able to rescue Buffalo from a sour start, as No. 15 Williamstown (5-2) vaulted into a 20-7 first-quarter lead despite running only seven offensive plays. Besides Tallman’s kickoff runback, Darren Hastings returned an interception 85 yards for a score.

Touchdown runs of 69 and 11 yards by Lucas helped tie the score at 27-all. The latter score came with just 14 seconds left before halftime and came four plays after Williamstown lost a fumble on a bad snap to Tallman at its own 19. That was play in which Tallman was injured.

Tallman, who ran for 107 yards on eight first-half carries, returned to the field on crutches to start the second half and No. 4 Buffalo rode a wave of momentum into a 34-27 lead. Lucas broke loose for a 35-yard score midway through the third quarter for the lead.

Things looked bleak for the ‘Jackets’ offense, as their first two possessions ended with fourth-and-25 and fourth-and-27 against a revitalized Bison defense.

Slowly, Haynes started a find a rhythm under center and completed 6 of 8 second-half passes for 76 yards, including a 13-yard TD toss to Hastings with 8:02 left in the game. The extra-point kick missed, however, keeping the Bison ahead 34-33.

Buffalo thought it had halted that drive three plays earlier when Stephen Booth picked off a Haynes pass and returned it 41 yards to the Williamstown 40, but the play was negated by a facemask penalty.

Trying to protect the one-point lead, the Bison picked up two first downs on the next drive but eventually had to punt it away. A bad punt snap, the second of the game, resulted in a 22-yard boot, and the ‘Jackets took over at their own 47 with 3:07 left.

The big play in the ensuing drive was a 29-yard hookup from Haynes to Trevor Hoosier in double coverage. Taylor’s TD run came four plays later to make it 39-34 in favor of the Jackets.

Buffalo got a 24-yard pass from Ethan Burgess to Lucas on third down to put the ball at the Williamstown 36, but Tim Wickham intercepted a ball at his own 32 with 27 seconds left to halt the threat.

“Things just happened,” said Bison coach Mike Sawyer. “We intercepted a pass and thought we had taken care of things, but there’s a penalty, so they keep the ball.

“It’s a very hard loss to take. There’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ve got to come back Monday and get after it again.”

Burgess hit on 7 of 12 passes for 73 yards and ran for two scores for Buffalo.

Sawyer didn’t think his team lost focus or assumed it was headed for a victory after Tallman’s injury.

“No, they know coming out (for the second half) that he may not be out there,” Sawyer said. “We talked about that. We just didn’t do what we needed to do at the end of the game.”

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