Second-half rally allows Millwood to soar past Hennessey

Hopes of a Hennessey district championship remained strong at halftime last Friday night. By the end of the third quarter, they were all but gone. Millwood rattled off 42 unanswered points in the second half - 30 of them in the third quarter - to knock off the upset-minded Eagles 58-22.

The road win secured the District 2A-1 championship for the Falcons (81, 6-0), who wrap up their regular season this week against Blackwell. Hennessey, which saw a four-game win streak snapped, dropped to 6-3 overall and 4-2 in the district. They’ll play at Newkirk on Friday to determine which team is third in the district. A win against Millwood would have put Hennessey in a three-way tie for first entering this week. And after two quarters, it seemed a possibility.

Titan Hix scored on a 3-yard run and then ran in the two-point conversion with 1:34 left in the half to give Hennessey a 22-16 lead. It capped a half that saw the Eagles try fake punts, double passes and go for it on fourth down with success. However, the success stopped in the third quarter as Millwood needed just over 1:00 to tie the game on a Ricky Hunt Jr. 17-yard touchdown run.

A Millwood defensive touchdown at 7:42 gave the Falcons the lead for good. By the end of the third quarter, Hunt added TD runs of 18 and 4 yards for a 46-22 lead. Hunt scored again from 45 yards out early in the fourth. Meanwhile, the Falcon defense was able to do what few - if any - teams have done this season: Corral Hix in the Hennessey run game. The freshman ran for 49 yards, but was dropped for losses of 24. That netted him 25 yards on 20 attempts. He did complete 15 of 28 passes for 233 yards and a touchdown. That passing TD was a 56-yard strike to Seth Simunek at 7:59 of the second quarter to pull the Eagles within 8-6.

It was one of seven receptions for Simunek. His catches covered 165 yards.

Less than a minute later, Hix plunged in from 2 yards out and threw a two-point pass to Simunek for a 14-8 Hennessey advantage.

The Falcons needed only a minute themselves to take the lead back as C.J. Turnbull hit Xzavior Thompson for a 30-yard TD.

But there was no backand- forth in the second half.

The Falcons managed 429 yards of offense while holding Hennessey to 265.

They ran for 321 yards and averaged 9.2 per carry.

Brandon Valles had eight total tackles to lead the Eagles. Simunek added six.

LikeHennessey,Newkirk is 4-2 in district games. The Tigers are 5-4 overall.

They were outscored a combined 68-0 by OCS and Millwood in back-to-back weeks, but have since won two straight against Perry (40-19) and Blackwell (567).

The Tigers used a big second half last year to mount a comeback, but still fell short in a 36-28 loss at Hennessey.