Rodney Murphy’s big night propels Heights to win over West (+video)

Three of Rodney Murphy’s four touchdowns went for 70 yards or more. But perhaps the most important carry for the Heights senior in his team’s 48-38 win over West was a 5-yard gain.

Heights’ 21-0 first half lead had dwindled to three points with two minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Falcons had the ball but faced a tricky fourth-and-4 near midfield. West had burned through the rest of its timeouts on the two previous plays, hoping its offense would get one more shot to steal a game that saw Height lead from the opening play.

Head coach Terry Harrison wanted to play it safe. His players thought differently.

“Initially I was thinking punt and let our defense finish the thing out when they had no timeouts,” he said. “But our kids wanted to run the ball. Our kids said, ‘We can get it.’”

The Falcons changed their coach’s mind, and Murphy took the ball and picked up the crucial five yards for a first down to keep West’s offense on the sideline.

“We tell our kids if you’re going to be tough and you’re going to play hard and you’re going to be a Heights Falcon, you’ve got to have some confidence and some swagger,” Harrison said. “They were asking to go for it, and finally I said, “Hey, if that’s what you want, let’s go.’ Generally, when you trust your kids sometimes that happens.”

Heights (4-2, 3-2 City League) scored three plays later, recovered the ensuing onside kick and escaped with the 10-point victory.

Murphy finished the night with four touchdowns, rushing for 236 yards on 15 carries. Including his 86-yard kickoff return, he finished with more than 300 total yards.

“He’s the fastest kid I’ve coached at Heights,” Harrison said. “We’ve had a lot of fast kids over the years, but since I’ve been the head coach he’s the fastest kid we’ve had. And he might be our best blocker. So when the kids know that he’s going to block when he doesn’t have the ball, when he has it I think they’re prone to block for him a little more than maybe some other places.”

After Murphy opened the game with an 84-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage, the night got worse for the Pioneers, who fumbled away three of their first four possessions.

Heights, meanwhile, established a diverse and effective ground game early with three rushing touchdowns on its first three possessions for a 21-0 lead late in the first half. Murphy said quality blocking was the key on a night when the team didn’t even bother to attempt a pass and instead racked up 494 rushing yards.

“When we started at the beginning of the game, that’s what it was. It was nice blocks being held in,” he said. “We got touchdowns out of that, but later on in the game we started coming off blocks a little bit early, which they started coming off their blocks and making plays so we had to adjust and keep scoring.”

A 22-point third quarter brought West back into the game. Senior quarterback Chaz Capps finished off most of his team’s scoring drives with four rushing touchdowns and 131 yards on 14 carries. But the brunt of the workload came from senior Danthony Andrews, who carried the ball 28 times for 169 yards, a majority of those yards coming after contact.

Capps’ 1-yard touchdown run with six seconds left in the third quarter capped a 10-play, 65-yard scoring drive that brought West to within 35-30. The two teams traded touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but Heights’ two-point conversion failed, while West’s was good, making it a 3-point game with 3:21 left.

West tried to rely on its defense to get a stop and two remaining timeouts to get the ball back with enough time for a potential game-winning drive. But Murphy’s clutch run around the right end on fourth-and-4 prolonged the drive and sealed Heights’ win.

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 11:23 PM with the headline "Rodney Murphy’s big night propels Heights to win over West (+video)."