Backup quarterback Elijah Lowery helps Parkwood stun undefeated Indian Land 31-28
Quarterback Elijah Lowery threw three touchdown passes as the Parkwood Wolf Pack beat the Indian Land Warriors 31-28 on the road Friday night.
Down 14-3 late in the first quarter, the Wolf Pack scored 28 unanswered points and managed to hold on for the victory.
“We had to keep our heads up,” Lowery said. “That’s something we’ve been struggling with all season. That’s the reason we have the record that we have. We have the skill set; we have the coaching. It’s just that we’ll get down and give up. Today, I feel like we really focused on keeping our heads up and making sure that we really get this game over with and come out with a win.”
Lowery was not supposed to start at quarterback and found out earlier Friday afternoon in class that he would be playing quarterback for all four quarters. The junior is actually the team’s starting safety and was the backup quarterback heading into this week. However, due to team policy infringements, Lowery got the start.
“We were always about the next man up,” Parkwood head coach Tim Boyd said. “Everybody on our team is sewn into our process. And it showed tonight. Elijah Lowery came in. He led our football program, but it was a collective group effort. All of our guys played really hard tonight.”
For Indian Land, the team started and finished the game off strong, scoring all 28 of its points in the first and fourth quarters. However, the Warriors’ play in the middle of the game left a lot to be desired. Of their six drives in the second and third quarters, four ended in punts (one of which was returned for a touchdown), one ended in an interception, and one ended in a turnover on downs after a fumbled snap on a punt.
“I was really, really disappointed with our execution at times that mattered,” Warriors head coach Adam Hastings said. “When a good football team is a team we want to be, we have to be able to execute. We had too many three-and-outs in the second quarter. Too many three-and-outs in the third quarter. We had too many third downs that we let them convert. The last five weeks, we have been talking about how much we were putting an emphasis on third down, and we were pretty pitiful on both offense and defense.”
Down 31-14 with just over nine minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Indian Land sprung to life, putting together two touchdown drives of 57 and 91 yards. Just before the first touchdown drive, Hastings called his team into a huddle, trying to galvanize them for a rally.
“It was really more just, ‘Hey, we got to get back to who we are,’ ” Hastings said. “We had two personal fouls, which we don’t have — back-to-back. We had bickering in between each other. Our players had not been used to being in that situation. They hadn’t been down like that this year. So they got in that situation and, all of a sudden, the wheels started to fall apart a little bit emotionally. And we got away from the things that I think are the core values of us as a team.”
This was the first-ever meeting between the two programs, and both sides came away with things to take from this game as they head into region/conference play.
“Well, we gotta learn how to play from behind,” Hastings said. “That’s the reality of it. You’re not going to be in our region and play from ahead all the time. I mean, you’re just not. So, hopefully, we can take some lessons from it. And like I told these guys, I’ve been in this long enough to tell you that you get in this scenario sometimes and it’s a learning experience.”
“This is going to be huge,” Boyd said. “We looked at Indian Land, and this is a really good football team that we just played. They were undefeated. They had a really good front seven, and that’s what we’re going to see going into our conference play with Forest Hills and Monroe. These are some of the top guys in the state of North Carolina. So this is really going to propel us going into conference play.”
Indian Land (4-1) suffered its first loss of the season as it moves on to play its first region matchup on the road against York next Friday. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.
For Parkwood (3-3), this victory brings it back to even on the year as it looks to extend its win streak to three games in its first conference matchup against Forest Hills on Friday. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
