Verona's late kick takes down Parker
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JANESVILLE — What a difference a week makes.
After stealing a Big Eight Conference victory with a last-second field goal over Madison West a week ago, Janesville Parker had the tables turned Friday night at Monterey Stadium.
Cameron Bathe connected on a 31-yard field goal with five seconds left to lift visiting Verona to a 17-14 win.
The loss dropped Parker into a first-place tie with Verona, Middleton and Madison Memorial at 3-1.
Parker tied the game at 14-14 on Trevor Boyle’s 49-yard fumble return with eight minutes left in the third quarter, but the Vikings could not muster anything offensively after that.
“It was a lot more fun last week being on the other end,” Parker coach Joe Dye said. “But I’m not going to hang our kids out to dry, not with the effort they put forth tonight.
“This conference usually comes down to who makes more plays, and they made one more tonight than we did.”
With the game tied at 14-14 and a little over five minutes left, Verona got the ball in good field position at its 41. The Wildcats quickly moved inside Viking territory, but were stuffed on back-to-back running plays to set up a fourth-and-1 at the Parker 36 with 3:05 left.
Quarterback Danny Burns kept on the fourth-down play and picked up two yards for a first down. Then, on five successive runs, Verona moved down to the Parker 13, and on a third-and-eight, Burns passed incomplete to set up Bathe’s heroics.
Despite not ever attempting a varsity field goal, Bathe had enough leg to clear the upright and give the Wildcats the lead.
“We run our two-minute
offensive drill every night in practice, so I had a lot of conidence that we could get into close enough range where I could try a field goal” Bathe said.
“Thirty yards is probably as far out as I can go, and I
wasn’t sure it was going to be good, but it sneaked in past the right upright.”
The Vikings finished with 201 yards of total offense, including just 131 on the ground. Sophomore Adam Versterfelt had 109 yards rushing, but was the majority of Parker’s offense.
Despite falling behind 14-0 and trailing 14-7 at half, Parker had a chance to stay unbeaten, thanks to the rejuvenated play of the defense in the second half. Verona was held to only 88 yards of offense in the second half but gained 46 on the game-winning drive.
“It’s a tough loss, but nobody is going to be feeling sorry for us,” Dye said. “We’ve got to get back to work and get ready for week five.
“We lived on the other end of it last week, and lived with it on this end this week. That’s Big Eight football.”
VERONA 17, PARKER 14
Verona 7 7 0 3—17
Janesville Parker 0 7 7 0—14
Scoring summary: V—Ndiva Malafa, 46 pass from Danny Burns (Cameron Bathe kick). V—Landon Flora, 28 pass from Burn (Bathe kick). P—Joe Allen, 5 run (Charlie Palan kick). P—Trevor Boyle, 49 fumble return (Palan kick). V—FG, Bathe, 31.
Statistics: First downs—V 18, P 11. Rushing—V 49-254, P 35-131. Yards passing—V 141, P 77. Passes—V 16-7-1, P 6-4-0. Fumbles—V 4-2, P 1-1. Penalties—V 8-49, P 7-56.
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