Shay Stone’s three-yard game sealing overtime touchdown scamper was all it took for Shaw Air Force Base to win the first Army vs. Air Force flag football game held at Fort Jackson, Jan. 25.
Stone, quarterback for a team representing the 20th Fighter Wing, ran the ball during the final drive that saw his team have multiple chances to score during the first overtime drive. Two previous plays were called back due to penalties.
Stone weaved his way through a team from the 369th Adjutant General Battalion, representing Fort Jackson and the Army, on multiple plays before the game winning score of the game held at the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy.
The defensive battle left the score even at the end of regulation with no team coming close to scoring. After Stone scored, the Jackson team gave it a shot riding the legs of quarterback Robert Thompson.
Thompson ran the ball three consecutive times to get down to the goal line, but an errant fourth down pass was intercepted in the end zone to seal the game.
“It feels really good” to win the game, said Nakeithian A. Phillips, the Shaw’s team’s coach. “We have been practicing for this game since December. All the cold days practicing with these guys – they deserve it. They actually came out here and were dedicated and this is what they wanted, and they achieved it.”
“On such an austere occasion like this I need to reach back in history and use a speech on the same magnitude as … the first Army Air Force Intramural Flag Football game,” said Col. Timothy Hickman, Fort Jackson garrison commander, before the game.
Hickman quoted Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous order launching D-Day.
He said the teams were on a football field in “the company of great allies and brothers in arms your teams will bring about the destruction of not knowing who is best at flag football between Shaw and Jackson … So I am pretty sure that is how the speech went. Play ball.”
The game evolved from a comment by a prior Air Force service member who works at Fort Jackson’s Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, about the post holding a Turkey Bowl against the base in Sumter, South Carolina. It wasn’t feasible before Thanksgiving, since the post hadn’t yet crowned a winning team, but with some legwork it was scheduled for January during professional football playoffs.
Penelope “Penny” Hadgeoff, Chief, Sports and Fitness Branch, said it felt great that the event finally came together. “It feels good, I’m really excited.”
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