The Ooltewah Owls made a couple of costly mistakes that were obvious in Friday night's Region 2-6A opener against Bradley Central before an overflow crowd at Ooltewah. It was the not-so-obvious one, though, that proved fatal in Bradley's 42-35 victory.
In a game that had seesaw written all over it from the kickoff, Bears junior quarterback Dylan Standifer was practically surgeon-like in his dissection of the Owls secondary in a couple of momentum-changing drives.
"Those two drives before halftime were just huge for us," Standifer said. "They tried to play us in man coverage, and I'm just going to tell you: I like our guys' chances winning one-on-one battles almost every time in those situations."
And they did, almost every time. Ooltewah scored on its opening drive, and Bradley answered only to see the Owls strike quickly for a 14-7 lead to open the second period. From that point on, the half belonged to Standifer.
Standifer completed eight of eight passes for all 81 yards to knot the score on a 6-yard toss to Saylor Clark against the man-to-man defense. And then with just over two minutes before halftime, Standifer covered 70 of 84 yards with his four pass completions, the final one a 22-yard strike to Tray Curry with just 24 seconds left for a 21-14 lead.
"I thought the coaches put together a really good offensive plan, and Dylan and the receivers and the offensive line really executed it well," Bradley coach Damon Floyd said. "Offensively, I felt we played great, and beating Ooltewah is a great accomplishment. They've won as many football games as anyone in this area over the last 10 years."
The Owls' first obvious mistake came in the third period when a snap on a punt was mishandled and then blocked into the end zone, where Bradley's Mason Mitchell fell on it for a 28-14 Bears lead. Then Standifer found Lameric Tucker running free on a 60-yard toss-and-catch, and suddenly it was 35-14 late in the third period.
"I felt we were in good shape, but we let our guard down some, and this was always going to be a fourth-quarter game," Floyd said.
And indeed it was.
Owls quarterback Kyrell Sanford, who did his best to match darts with Standifer, led Ooltewah down the field and cut the deficit to 35-21 with an 8-yard TD pass to Andrew Manning under heavy pressure. Sanford took a massive hit upon release, and Manning made a leaping grab that gave the Owls hope.
Ooltewah held tight but later fumbled (costly mistake No. 2) after a catch deep inside Bradley territory, and the Bears seemingly put it away with Standifer's 2-yard sneak for a score at the 4:22 mark for a 42-21 lead. The Owls scored immediately, though, on Sincere Quinn's 61-yard burst, held the Bears and scored again with 45 seconds left on Sanford's 6-yard TD pass to Bryce Matthews.
The Bears got the onside kick, though, and ran out the clock to secure the victory, breaking a three-game losing streak to the Owls and winning for just the fourth time in the last 15 in the series.
Standifer had 308 yards on 20-of-30 passing for Bradaley (2-1, 1-0) and both Tucker (9-165 yards) and Nick Howell (6-105 yards) had 100-yard receiving games. Sanford was 19-of-31 in the air for 286 yards. with Manning hauling in five for 139 yards and two TDs. Quinn added 123 rushing yards on 15 carries.
Contact James Beach at sports@timesfreepress.com