Opp beats Abbeville to win region title

ABBEVILLE – Opp and fullback Trey Short needed two yards on fourth down with 1:48 left and the Class 3A, Region 2 championship on the line.

Even though the Bobcats were at midfield, the word “punt” wasn’t even in their vocabulary.

“We were going for it,” Short said. “We were getting those two yards.”

Short and the offensive line did that, as the senior ran through a big hole, gaining 36 to the Abbeville 13 and putting the nail on a 22-20 victory over the Yellow Jackets.

Opp improved to 6-2, 6-0 in region play and the Bobcats will be the No. 1 seed. Abbeville’s loss snapped a six-game win streak and the Yellow Jackets are 6-2, 5-1, and will be the No. 2 seed. Both teams will host first-round playoff games.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Green Bay (Packers), as long as we’re there,” an emotional Opp head coach Jack Whigham said after the game. “We’ve got some kids that have gone through an awful, awful lot. They deserve this. They played their hearts out. We said if we could control our emotions, we’d have a chance to win the game, and I think we did.”

Opp certainly had to battle from behind early, as Abbeville led 12-0 less than five minutes into the game. The Yellow Jackets led 20-6 less than a minute into the second quarter after Marqavius Shipman hit Jaylin Porter on a 43-yard touchdown pass and Shipman threw the 2-point conversion pass to Siran Neal.

It came on the first play after Opp tipped a punt, but a Bobcat player went after the deflection and fumbled it right back to Abbeville.

From there, Opp kept it in control and didn’t let Abbeville score again.

“It turned when we didn’t lose our cool,” Whigham said. “We said all week long we’d have to stay in control of our emotions. If we didn’t turn on each other, we knew the game would last long and we’d have a chance to win.

“The defense did a heck of a job. They’ve done it all year long.”

Opp trailed 20-14 at halftime and went ahead with 1:05 left in the third quarter when Onterrio Jones scored from 5 yards out to tie it and Devin Davis ran in the 2-point conversion.

Abbeville got the ball inside the red zone twice in the fourth quarter, but were stopped 1 and 5 yards short of the first down on fourth down tries. High and bobbled snaps plagued Abbeville on those two drives. Penalties hurt the Yellow Jackets on their third quarter drive, where they converted a 3 rd and 22, but later had a personal foul and false start and couldn’t overcome 1 st and 30.

“You just can’t make mistakes against good teams,” Abbeville head coach Al Shipman said. “We get in the red zone, we bobble the ball, just too many mistakes.”

Marqavius Shipman, Al’s son, threw for 281 yards on 20 of 28 passes. His 25-yard touchdown pass to Neal made the score 12-0 after Abbeville’s second drive on the game. The Yellow Jackets went up 6-0 on the second play of the game when Montrez Brown scored on a 63-yard run.

Opp cut the lead to 12-6 in the first when Myeke Boyd, who ran for 87 yards, scored on a 2-yard run. Short scored on a 4-yard run in the second quarter and ran in the 2-point conversion to cut the lead to 20-14.

Short led all rushers with 148 yards on 10 carries, surprising the Yellow Jackets with several big runs.

“That’s what the trap is for,” Whigham said. “When you’re a toss sweep team, sometimes they leave the middle wide open.”

A large crowd from Opp made the 75-mile trip to support a Bobcats team that fought through adversity all year long.

“We’ve had some personal issues with kids, family problems,” Whigham said. “We’re a town just like everybody else is. We’ve got hardships, but we’ve got kids that bust their tails wanting to be a part of something good and we just fought through a lot of that.”