CREVE COEUR — Parkway North senior running back Antoine Gunn waited with patience.
And confidence.
Gunn knew the Vikings offense wasn’t as bad as it showed in the first half of Thursday’s Suburban Conference Green Pool football affair with rival Hazelwood East.
So he remained unfazed as the offense sputtered with one three-and-out after another.
“No worry,” he said. “But once the train gets going, it’s hard to stop.”
That locomotive was in high gear after the halftime break.
Parkway North reeled off 17 unanswered points to stun Hazelwood East 31-30 in an overtime nailbiter at Parkway North.
The Vikings (4-1, 3-0) made all the right plays in the second half after a disastrous beginning on offense.
“Not one of us put our heads down,” Parkway North junior wide receiver Alex Harvey said.
Parkway North charged back from 18-0 and 24-7 deficits with a stellar about-face.
Gunn and Harvey came up big during crunch time to send the fans home happy.
“Getting down, we felt as though it wasn’t them killing us, it was us killing ourselves,” Parkway North coach Karl Odenwald said. “We were shooting ourselves in the foot. We knew if we could come out and minimize that in the second half, then we would have a chance to get back in the ball game.”
Gunn sparked the rally with a nifty 63-yard scoring burst on the host’s first possession of the second half to trim the deficit to 24-17.
Harvey then hauled in a 64-yard bullet from quarterback Kenyon Bolden to tie the game early in the final stanza.
The lightning-quick Harvey came up huge high again by scoring from 5 yards out on a reverse in overtime to tie the game.
Senior kicker Liam Nord added the extra point to end the 2-hour, 45-minute shootout. Nord is a goalkeeper on North’s soccer team.
Hazelwood East (3-2, 2-1) took control early in bolting out to an 18-0 lead in the first half. Running back Terrance Little scampered 89 yards for a score and junior quarterback Tyshawn Tillman hit Quace Clark on a 13-yard scoring toss with 22 seconds left to cap off a near-perfect half.
The Spartans shined on defense over the first two quarters.
Parkway North recorded five successive three-and-outs to begin the contest. Its initial first down came on its 17th play from scrimmage.
“Just too many mistakes that we shouldn’t be making,” Gunn said.
Those mistakes were corrected during the break.
The Vikings came out looking like a totally different team scoring on their first two possessions to tie the game.
Bolden appeared more confident and the offense returned to its ground and pound ways.
“At halftime, we challenged our offensive line to dig deep,” Odenwald said. “We used some different run schemes. (Gunn) found a couple creases and made them pay.”
Nord drilled a 22-yard field goal late in the first half to bring his team to within 24-10. Bolden helped get the Vikings on the board with a 60-yard TD toss to KJ Burns.
The Spartans used a pick-six by Thomas Traylor and a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Lajuan Palmer to score early.
Hazelwood East coach Bobby Cole felt the inability to convert after scoring touchdowns was the difference in the game. The extra point was blocked in OT and the Spartans failed on four other conversions.
“We came out and played three quarters of pretty outstanding football,” Cole said. “Just couldn’t finish it.”
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Steve Overbey | Post-Dispatch
High school sports reporter
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