MEBANE — Joshua Murray found himself a yard away from the end zone, using his speed and elusiveness to rip off a 16-yard run.
On the verge of extending Eastern Alamance’s lead to two touchdowns in the third quarter, Murray instead lost control of the ball, which squirted free and rolled into the end zone for a Williams touchback.
Murray was determined to not let that be the last time he was heard from Thursday night at Fred Brady Stadium. And he found redemption with his 4-yard touchdown run in double overtime to complete a 20-17 victory.
“You’ve got to have the next play mentality,” Murray said. “You’ve just got to work and come back from it.”
Murray notched the clincher, quarterback Jason Ball tossed a pair of touchdowns to receiver Trynton Wiley and the Eastern Alamance defense held a talented Williams offense in check for much of the night as the Eagles (5-1, 2-0 Central Carolina) took control in the league with the victory.
“We knew they were going to have a game plan for us,” Murray said. “They were going to stack the box. We knew we needed to get the ball out so we could widen up the box. Just stay composed and wait for the right moment.”
Murray finished with 70 rushing yards on 17 carries, while Tyrek Samuel rattled off 74 yards on seven carries to help propel the Eastern Alamance offense.
“Josh runs the ball extremely hard. He's a gamer,” Eastern Alamance coach John Kirby said. “He plays hard. He's very critical of himself. He wants to be perfect. I think he and Tyrek make a good combination in the backfield. I thought the last couple of weeks, Josh has really played well.”
Williams safety Nasir Price intercepted Ball in the end zone to hold Eastern Alamance off the scoreboard to open the first overtime, but Williams missed a 30-yard field goal that would’ve won the game.
“We were a little worried about that after we didn’t (score) in the first overtime, but we made it through,” Murray said. “We have a few players on the team — most of our offensive line and me that have a lot of experience in (close) games like that.”
Bulldogs kicker Brick Bowen booted a 23-yard field goal to push Williams in front 17-14 after the first possession of the second overtime, before Murray’s score sealed things.
The Bulldogs (4-3, 2-1) found periods of success as an offense but, far too often, opportunities were squandered due to a laundry list of penalties.
“We got a lot of weapons on offense and we executed and we got called for an awful lot of penalties that stop drives, that hurt us, to put us behind the chains,” Williams coach Patrick Stokes said. “It’s tough calling plays when you're constantly getting penalized. Eastern’s got a really good defense and do a good job. They fly to the ball.”
Trailing by seven in the fourth quarter, though, the Williams offense responded with its best drive of the night, going 80 yards in six plays. Kylei Richmond's 9-yard touchdown and the extra-point kick knotted the score 14-14 with 55.2 seconds left.
Richmond toted the ball 14 times for 98 yards, and Williams quarterback Jaelan Brown threw for 186 yards, one interception and a touchdown to Cam’ron Jones (96 yards, six catches) in the first quarter.
“Perseverance is one of our team’s core values and our kids demonstrated a lot of that, as did our coaches,” Stokes said. “In big ball games, you got to withstand the storm. You got to be confident in the foundation and our players did that for four quarters and two overtimes, and so did theirs.”
This article originally appeared on Times-News: Eastern Alamance football, Murray redeem themselves with OT win over Williams
