KENNEWICK – The Prosser football team rolled up its sleeves Saturday and rallied to beat Archbishop Murphy 14-7 in a 2A state quarterfinal at Lampson Stadium.
Sounds like a clich, but literally, the Mustangs rolled up their sleeves to get the job done.
Prosser had eight first-half fumbles, losing four of them, which several players and coaches attributed in part to the long sleeves of the undergarments the Mustangs wore in the first half.
“They were getting a little slick,” said sophomore Kirby Moore, who caught a 19-yard touchdown pass from Kellen Moore with 15 seconds left for the winning score. “So at halftime, everybody rolled them up and got them out of the way.”
Prosser (12-0) didn’t lose the ball once in the second half, and as a result, the offense clicked just enough against a tough Archbishop Murphy defense to advance the Mustangs to a semifinal date with Centralia at 4 p.m. next Saturday at the Tacoma Dome.
“We had our troubles, but we kept gutting it out,” Kirby Moore said. “We didn’t work the whole summer for nothing.”
With the offense unable to hang on to the ball in the first half, the Mustangs defense came up big time again and again. Prosser held Murphy (11-1) to 182 yards total offense and, despite the four first-half turnovers, the Mustangs went into the locker room behind just 7-0.
“Our defense never hung our heads. We knew we had to step it up big time,” said junior linebacker Keegan Pilot, who led Prosser with 12 tackles, two for loss. “Our offense wasn’t putting points on the board, so we had to make a lot of big stops and get the ball back for them.”
Murphy’s only score came when a botched handoff gave it the ball at the Prosser 26. Tony Houts scored on a 13-yard run with 10:02 remaining until halftime.
“We were very pleased with our performance,” said Wildcats coach Terry Ennis.
“We worked our butt off on offense for those seven points. We weren’t expecting to run through these guys at all.”
In the other locker room, there was a sense of relief.
“We felt fortunate the score was what it was at halftime,” said Prosser coach Tom Moore. “What’s done is done. We just had to stay calm, come out and play the second half.”
Murphy had two time-consuming drives in the third quarter that yielded nothing, and Prosser finally got on the board on the first play of the fourth quarter when Kellen Moore twisted over left guard on second effort for a 1-yard touchdown sneak.
The Mustangs were held on fourth down at the Murphy 12 on their next drive with four minutes to go after marching from inside their own 1. But Pilot knifed into the backfield to tackle Dejan Sughrim on third down for a 3-yard loss to force a punt, and Prosser got the ball back at the Wildcats 37 with 1:56 to play.
Bubba Hancock gained 9 yards on three carries, then Kellen Moore hit Kirby Moore on a 9-yard rollout with 29 seconds left.
After an incompletion, the Mustangs called “3 Vertical,” with Bruns in the left slot going down the middle of the field and Kirby Moore going down the left sideline. Kellen looked one of the safeties off his brother and onto Bruns, and after Kirby cleared a jam at the line of scrimmage, he found an open spot in the zone and hauled in the winning pass.
“We just didn’t want to score too early,” Tom Moore said. “We knew exactly what we were doing. We knew how much time was left. Their kids were getting tired, so we ran the ball, then we took a shot with the pass.
“We ran a play that we hadn’t run all game. They had two high safeties, so we felt we’d have a shot with Kirby on the outside. We knew that was the ballgame.”
Kellen, who had stitches put in his left (throwing) hand after smashing it on a helmet during Friday’s practice, finished 12-of-18 for 143 yards. Kirby Moore had five catches for 56 yards, and Bruns caught four passes for 38 yards, giving him 101 receptions for the season.
Kody Frank ran for 73 of his game-high 77 yards in the second half before suffering a minor injury. Hancock replaced him and finished with 47 yards on eight carries and also had 10 tackles at safety. Bobby Humphreys added nine tackles.
At Lampson Stadium, Kennewick
Archbishop Murphy0700-7
Prosser00014-14
A. Murphy-Tony Houts 13 run (Ian Houts kick)
Prosser-Kellen Moore 1 run (Trevor Fox kick)
Prosser-Kirby Moore 19 pass from Ke. Moore (Fox kick)
STATISTICS
RUSHING-A. Murphy: Dejan Sughrim 18-44, T.Houts 15-56, Brad Gee 7-31, John-Paul Blair 4-12, Russel Stiegler 3-22, Nick Snyder 2-(minus 9), team 1-(minus 2).
Prosser: Bubba Hancock 8-47, Kody Frank 7-77, Steve Natho 6-31, Jarod Leighty 5-18, Ke. Moore 4-(minus 2).
PASSING-A. Murphy:, Blair 1-2-0-28, Sughrim 0-1-0-0.
Prosser: Ke. Moore 12-18-0-143.
RECEIVING-A. Murphy: JJ Quinlan 1-28.
Prosser: Ki. Moore 5-56, Cody Bruns 4-38, Cory Enbretson 1-15, Andy Moore 1-6, Serg Torres 1-28.
FIRST DOWNS-A. Murphy: 9, Prosser 13.
FUMBLES-LOST-A. Murphy 2-0, Prosser 8-4.
PENALTIES-YARDS-A. Murphy 10-80, Prosser 1-5.
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