Gallery by Greg Barnett
After finishing as the Class AAA state runner-up a year ago, Princeton ran with the slogan “Unfinished Business.”
It will remain that way for another year.
No. 4 Herbert Hoover dominated the trenches Friday evening, coming into Hunnicutt Stadium and handing No. 1 Princeton a 35-12 defeat on a frigid 20 degree evening in the Class AAA semifinals.
The victory sends Hebert Hoover to its second title game in three seasons, this one in triple-A, where it will face the winner of Bridgeport-Fairmont Senior next Saturday at Laidley Field in Charleston.
The Huskies never deviated from their bread and butter, pounding the rock 44 times for 262 yards.
A year after 2023 Kennedy winner Dom Collins stamped his Kennedy campaign with a 300-yard performance in the semis, Hoover’s best player did the same on the exact same field. QB Dane Hatfield rushed 36 times for 215 yards and four touchdowns in the dominant win. His offensive output was so efficient that his team punted just once in the nine drives it possessed the ball.
“That’s part of the plan,” Herbert Hoover head coach Joey Fields said. “You give them less possessions but to do that, you gotta get first downs. We were able to do it behind our offensive line. Guys that have battled. Those guys have been in our program for a while and came up and then when you got 13 (Hatfield) and (Blake Fisher) back there, it’s you can make some noise.”
In a repeat of last week’s performance against North Marion, the host Tigers started slow on offense, eventually rallying but the comeback bid started too late. They gained just 48 yards of total offense and picked up only two first downs in the first half.
“I don’t think you could say anything other than we got punched in the mouth,” Princeton head coach Keith Taylor said. “I thought our guys weren’t ready and that’s all on me, 100 percent on the coach. I think we came into this game and I thought we had a good game plan, but it really just came down to toughness. Coach Fields and his Herbert Hoover Huskies put it to us. They punched us in the mouth and they never stopped. They gave us a little life there at the end, but they controlled the game. We kept trying to get our guys to buy in. I’m glad they didn’t quit, but that game was over once we started playing. I think those guys played with a different physicality. They played at a different level than us. When we got our momentum back and we started to play like ourselves a little bit, it was too late because you can’t do that with a great football team in a semifinal.”
Execution errors were often to blame for the Tigers. A penalty and an errant snap, issues that became synonymous with the 2024 campaign, put the Tigers in a third-and-20 on their first drive. A 17-yard strike to Brad Mossor kept the offense on the field for a fourth-and-3 attempt but a pair of consecutive dead ball penalties forced a punt.
From there Hatfield went to work, rushing seven times for 37 yards en route to his first end zone trip, a plunge from four yards out. Princeton’s offense continued to struggle while defense and special teams gave their best shot at keeping the game within a score. A blocked field goal and a fumble recovery by Princeton in the red zone ended potential Hoover scoring drives of 32 and 29 yards but the Tiger offense was as cold as the temperatures it played in.
No worse for wear, Hatfield proved to again be a menace for the Tigers when he scored once more from four yards out with 22 seconds left in the half. His backfield mate Blake Fisher got in on the action in the third when he turned a first-and-20 into a 28-yard rushing touchdown, staking the visitors to a 21-0 lead in the third quarter.
The play was just one of three runs the Huskies produced for a first down or better when they needed 15 or more yards to convert for a first down. The other two came on the final two drives of the game where Hatfield turned a second-and-19 into a 41-yard run and a fourth-and-14 into a 23-yard touchdown.
“I think when we did that we had good filed position, so we were okay with that so we just called the best call,” Fields said. “I probably wouldn’t if I’m in the opposite field position and we’ve got punt to flip the field, but no, you call your best plays. You work those. I’m sure that Princeton knew everything we were coming in with, they had a great game plan. Our guys, it’s all about moving the line of scrimmage, winning the line of scrimmage and then we were able to make some plays on their on their athletes on defense.”
Staring down a second half multi-score deficit for the third time in four games, the Princeton offense pulled out of neutral with a 10-play 71-yard scoring drive that saw Chance Barker hook up with receiver Wyatt Cline for gains of 37 and 19 yards, setting up a 1-yard touchdown run by Daniel Jennings.
Moving Kalum Kiser from linebacker to defensive end on the following possession helped Princeton force its first punt of the evening and it capitalized. Despite a pair of penalties, the Tigers successfully moved 87 yards in eight plays, trimming the deficit to 21-12 on a 16-yard pass from Barker to Brad Mossor. A penalty after the play pushed the PAT back, removing the two-point conversion possibility. The ensuing PAT was blocked regardless and Hatfield put the game away with touchdown runs of 3 and 23 yards in the final 7:29 of the contest.
Princeton’s offense sputtered as Barker was strip sacked twice, seeing Hoover’s Ethan Patrick pick up both loose balls.
“Unbelievable,” Fields said. “Great playing by coach (Steve) Stoffel and his staff, coach (Chris) Flanagan, coach (Brian) Young, coach (Richard) Harper. These guys do a fantastic job. Our kids have bought in. But they’re playing for one another. When you got a high care for one another and you play together and you got love, you can do some special things. We beat a very, very good football team at a very hard place to win.”
For Princeton it was a night of frustrations as it suffered its first loss of the season and first at home since last October. It was compounded by the inability to slow the Huskies, who repeatedly ran to the rigth, daring the Tigers to slow them.
“They’re running the same play, they’re running quarterback power, they’re running the draw, they’re running stuff that we’ve seen them run all year,” Taylor said. “Other teams haven’t been able to stop them either. So we thought we would be able to, obviously I didn’t have them coached up but at the end of the day, you have to be able to tackle somebody and get them to the ground and they made more plays than we did, and out-toughed us. Hats off to them, the better team won today. ”
Princeton finishes its season with a 12-1 mark, tying last year’s team for the single-season wins record.
Scoring Plays
Q1
