Hornets Use Two Second-Half Kickoff Returns to Edge Visiting Patriots

Yorktown came to Herndon Saturday afternoon poised to spoil the Hornets’ Homecoming. But the home team had other plans, and rode two dramatic kickoff returns — one with less than a minute and a half to play — to a come-from-behind, 35-31 victory.

On their opening drive, Patriots’ senior quarterback Tim Reynolds found senior Ben Brooks wide open down the middle of the field for a touchdown and the early lead. The Hornets (3-4 overalll, 1-2 Concorde District) answered right back, mounting a 15-play drive that resulted in a 26-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Zack Ozycz to senior Nicco Berry.

Herndon scored again on their next possession in quicker fashion. Senior running back Chris Winston took the handoff on the third play of the drive and scattered 36 yards for the touchdown and a 14-7 lead. The Patriots (3-4 overall, 2-1 National District) tied the game on their first possession of the second quarter using a 3-yard run by junior Kyle Toulouse with 9:13 remaining in the half.

	That’s when things got sloppy, as the two teams combined for three fumbles on the next eight plays. Herndon’s second fumble set up an outstanding run-and-score by Reynolds, who barely stretched the ball inside the pylon as his body fell out of bounds. Yorktown would then force Herndon to punt, and added a 42-yard field goal by senior Brian Sims to take a 24-14 lead into break.      The extra-long Homecoming half time seemed to refresh Herndon. Winston took the second half kickoff 84 yards back to the house to pull the Hornets within three.
Herndon senior Desmond Siefu broke free on a 94-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the game’s final minute to secure the Hornets’ win.

“You can’t judge football players by size,” Herndon Coach Joe Sheaffer said of Winston, who is listed at 5-feet-7 and 170 pounds. “He might be the littlest kid out here, but he is tough, strong and he’s fast.”

The Hornets’ defense then forced a Yorktown punt, and their offense responded by stringing together another long drive. After 16 plays, one well-executed fake punt by senior linebacker Erikk Shupp and a quarterback sneak by Ozycz, Herndon had re-claimed the lead at 28-24.

But late in the fourth quarter the Yorktown offense got rolling again. With the offensive line leading the way on nine straight running plays, Reynolds once again capped the drive with a 5-yard touchdown pass to junior Jared Smith with just 1 minute, 23 seconds on the clock and the visiting team holding a three-point lead. 

But it didn’t last long.

This time it was senior Desmond Siefu who fielded the Yorktown kickoff, and he returned it 94 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown and the win.

“That’s something we really work on, and we felt like we had a chance maybe at one,” Sheaffer said of the pair of spectacular kickoff returns. “I didn’t know we would get two.”