By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
MARLTON — Where do you even begin to describe the game between Atlantic City and host Cherokee High on Friday night?
It was a game that featured an interception returned for a score, a 72-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, three successful onsides kicks, screen passes that broke for long scoring plays, broken-up two-point conversions — just about anything you could think of in one of the most exciting games in the last decade in South Jersey.
In the end, Atlantic City showed what athleticism and speed can do as the Vikings raced back from a 20-6 deficit, scoring three times in the fourth quarter to pull out a miracle 24-20 victory over the hosts Chiefs, who dominated time of possession and were one first down away from sealing a victory before a wild final five minutes of action.
“We don’t quit. There’s no quit in us,” said Vikings coach Keenan Wright. “We have a young quarterback who keeps getting better, and he’s going to keep slinging the ball around. He’s starting to see the field a little bit better. We had some dropped passes, some mistakes and some defensive issues where we had guys out of position. Offensively, they did a good job of scouting us and we had a tough time adjusting.”
Cherokee went into halftime sporting a 7-0 lead thanks to a 7-yard touchdown run by Brendan Markovsky in the first quarter, but Atlantic City seemed to turn the tides when Ahmad Chambers took the opening kickoff of the second half back 72 yards for a touchdown that got the Vikings to within 7-6.
From there, though, the Chiefs dominated the third quarter. Atlantic City’s only possession in the quarter gained just 18 yards and ended when Cherokee’s star quarterback and safety Cooper Burti picked off a fourth-down pass and returned it 68 yards for a score and a 13-6 lead. Cherokee then surprised Atlantic City with an onsides kick, recovered it and drove 52 yards for another touchdown, as a 3-yard run from Markovsky and Matthew St. John’s point after gave the Chiefs what appeared to be a commanding 20-6 lead with 3:42 left in the third.
“They had the momentum going into halftime, but we came out (in the second) ready to go. We needed one play to get back into the game, that’s all we needed,” said Atlantic City sophomore receiver Don’Taye Thompson, who had 138 yards and two touchdowns on just four catches from classmate Marvin Burroughs Jr., son of one of Atlantic City’s all-time best quarterbacks.
Atlantic City got the big play it was looking for on its first possession of the fourth quarter, as Thompson took a bubble screen to the right, cut back up the middle and was gone for a 72-yard touchdown. The conversion failed, leaving the Vikings trailing 20-12 with about 11 minutes to go.
The fun was just getting started at that point.
Atlantic City forced Cherokee to punt, and Cherokee’s next possession ended on a turnover on downs as the Chiefs were trying to bleed the clock down. A first down would have come close to ending the game, but a key dropped pass on third down left the door open for A.C.
The Vikings responded, as Burroughs engineered a drive from his own 28-yard line to the Chiefs’ 33 before Thompson took another screen pass to the house, getting the Vikings to within 20-18 with 2:56 left.
“We have a great connection,” Thompson said of he and Burroughs, who finished with 291 yards and two touchdown passes. “He’s been my quarterback since we’ve been 5 years old.”
But another screen pass on the two-point try was broken up, leaving Atlantic City two points short with no timeouts and less than three minutes to go.
“I made a really bad call on that two-point conversion, on the 2-yard line and calling a screen,” Wright explained. “It was a little arrogant of me. I almost called a timeout, but I didn’t — and I should have.”
His players bailed him out, though, as this time it was the Vikings recovering an onsides kick. The drove down the field and scored what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown when senior Kyree Barksdale plowed his way in from 5 yards out after a key penalty on Cherokee kept the drive alive just two plays earlier.
“Feed me. I saw a weakness in their defense and I wanted to take it. They couldn’t match our speed, so we were making them run sideline-to-sideline to try to tackle us,” Barksdale said. “This was a crazy game. This is a great place to play. Every time we faced adversity, we didn’t give up. We just kept on pushing, and pushed one another to play harder. We stayed together. Whenever something bad happens, we stay together as a unit and try to push through it. We have that perseverance.”
Still not enough crazy football for you? Cherokee had one last chance, and nearly pulled off a miracle of its own. Facing 3rd-and-17 at the Vikings’ 22-yard line, Burti hooked with John Serzan over the middle with time winding under 12 seconds, but Serzan was stopped just short of the goal line. Burti rushed to the line and tried to sneak the ball across the goal line and was stopped by Atlantic City’s defense, and as he tried to spike the ball on second down the clock hit triple zeroes.
Cherokee doesn’t have much time to regroup, as the Chiefs travel to Shawnee on Friday, while Atlantic City faces Vineland, Eastern and Hammonton before the state playoffs begin.
“I think we take this and we have to just get better,” Wright said. “They were well prepared for us. We’re trying to make a run in Group 5 so we still have some things to work out. But these guys played hard and I’m proud of them.”
“We’re just one to the next,” Barksdale added. “This is just one game, we made some mistakes that we have to fix going into next week. We have to be ready to go out there and win next week. I want people to know that we’re not a team to sleep on. We’ve faced a lot of adversity, and when adversity comes, you can’t count us out.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Cherokee travels to Shawnee on Friday at 6 p.m. Atlantic City hosts Vineland on Thursday at 6 p.m.
