Last – Minute Heroics at Piper
By Jeremy Banks
Kansas City Kansan Newspaper
Question:
How do you get about 20 people to line up outside and chant your name for 10 minutes straight?
Here’s how to do it.
Come into a situation where your team is behind 21-14 with only :57 seconds left to play. Lead the team on a 75 yard drive in those 57 seconds and score on the two-point conversion to win and it’s a lock that it can happen to you too.
Piper High School quarterback Scott Lipovac had fans chanting “We want Scott, we want Scott” after Lipovac led the Pirates 3-1, to a 22-21 come-from-behind win over Mill Valley High School, 3-1, Friday night at Piper High School.
“It hasn’t set in yet, but I’m sure tomorrow I’ll know how much it means,” said Lipovac.
The Piper offense was potent for the majority of the night, romping up and down the field. But turnovers and penalties halted a number of point- producing drives to put the Pirates in a situation to have to come back.
The Pirates opened up the scoring in the game when it started the drive on its own nine-yard line and drove 91 yards in 12 plays. The drive was capped off by a Lipovac-towide receiver Chris Shannon 50-yard touchdown pass.
In a twins formation Lipovac dropped back to pass and looked to his left, then his right, downfield he saw Shannon who was working against man-to-man coverage.
Lipovac took advantage of the coverage and lofted a ball deep into the hands of a streaking Shannon down the sideline. Shannon caught the ball in stride and took it all the way down for the touchdown, but the extra point was no good. The score was 6-0 in favor of Piper.
Mill Valley answered right back on the ensuing kick-off when Jaguars running back David Woods put together a big return all the way to the Piper one-yard line.
Woods one play later took a hand-off up the middle and scored. The Jaguars extra-point was good and Mill Valley was ahead at 7-6 that quick.
Mill Valley scored once again in the third quarter with 6:56 left to play on a four yard touchdown run by Woods to extend the lead to 14-6.
Piper received chances to get a score and try to tie the game with a two point conversion, but penalties, dropped passes in key situations and turnovers hurt the team.
Fullback Ryan Moore fumbled the football inside the Mill Valley five, the Pirates had a 65-yard touchdown pass from Lipovac to running back Shawnn Lampson taken away due to penalties and Shannon who made big plays during the course of the game, stumbled some by dropping two consecutive key passes that would have been first downs deep in Jaguar territory.
The lead stayed at 14-6 until the fourth quarter where things got wild.
With 4:58 left to play in the game, Piper finally tied the game at 14-14 when on the Mill Valley 29 yard line, Lipovac seemingly dropped back to pass, but gave the ball to Lampson on a draw play. Lampson took the draw and shook one defender, which freed him up to run through the Mill Valley secondary on his way to a 29-yard touchdown run. The two-point conversion was good, thus putting Piper right back in the game and getting fans excited again.
But Woods and Mill Valley were not done just yet.
On Mill Valley’s next possession it strung together a seven-play 72 yard drive which was finished with guess who, a Woods touchdown run.
On the Piper 30-yard line and out of the pro-set formation, Woods took a pitch to his left. He hit the corner and juked one defender (a quick evasive move). He then danced his way through the defense and broke free down the sideline for a touchdown to seemingly put the game away with 1:24 left to play and the Jaguars ahead 21-14 late.
Piper took the kick-off and returned it to its own 25-yard line.
When the drive started and with Piper’s offensive fire power, fans had a feeling something special could happen.
Players started motioning for the crowd to get into the game and cheerleaders got fans back into the action.
So with :57 seconds left to play and 75 yards away from a score, Piper started off the drive.
“I knew the odds were against us, but with 57 seconds to go, we knew we had a chance to get the ball downfield and put it in,” said Lipovac.
Lipovac started the drive with a 5-yard scramble, then a 15-yard pass to wide receiver Alex Angelotti. He then hit Angelotti again for eight yards to take the Pirates to the Mill Valley 47-yard line with only :28 seconds left. Angelotti picked up another pass from Lipovac, this time it was for 15 yards leaving the Pirates with just :17 seconds left to play.
After getting down to the 12-yard line, Lipovac finished the drive by hitting wide receiver Jeff Hamilton for a touchdown with just one second left to play in the game.
The crowd erupted.
Lipovac, out of a spread-formation dropped back to pass and found Hamilton in the middle of the endzone, but between two defenders. Lipovac zipped the ball between the crease and hit a diving Hamilton for the game tying touchdown.
Piper football coach Dick Tatro had confidence Lipovac could help the team drive for the touchdown all along.
“Scott’s a great quarterback.” Said Tatro. “He knows what he’s doing out there, he’s schooled in the offense and he’s cool under fire. He had a lot of decisions to make and he did a great job.”
Now in this situation would you go for the extra-point or be brave and and put it all on the line by playing for the win and going for the two-point conversion?
Piper took the latter.
The Pirates had the ball on the three-yard line and snapped the ball for the game’s deciding play. Lipovac dropped back to pass and scanned the field, but seemingly no one was open.
He took off to his right for the score. He ran to the corner of the endzone and dove for the line.
He was hit hard by a linebacker, but just got the ball over the line and scored for the two-point conversion and the 22-21 lead prompting an on-field celebration. Piper players and the Pirates stormed the field, though the game was not completely over yet – there was still one second to play.
“I’m still a little woozy from that last hit.” Said Lipovac.
With one second left to play, all Piper had to do was squib-kick the ball on the kick-off and the win was final.
Piper 22, Mill Valley 21.
Tatro said the Pirates practice every day for that very moment.
“That’s the advantage of the kind of offense we run. And we do excellent every practice. We do two-minute drills and we move it down the fields. It was just made for this moment.
“Our offense is great this year,” said Lipovac. “We’re just multi-dimensional. We have some great threats.”
