Kentwood<\/a> in a 19-16 double overtime victory over Gig Harbor on Saturday night at French Field.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nConks Head Coach Rex Norris after the game said that Hubbard, a senior running back, was throwing up before the game and on the sidelines throughout the contest.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt Hubbard had a great game for us,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hubbard, despite his illness, tallied 200 yards on 26 carries.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On Hubbard\u2019s highlight reel was a 27-yard touchdown run around the outside to put Kentwood up 10-3 with 3:26 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Spectators would never have known Hubbard wasn\u2019t feeling 100 percent, especially when he helped set up the winning touchdown by bringing it down to the 12 from the 25, in the second overtime.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From there, it was Visa Thach, who carried the ball the final three times for Kentwood including punching it in from a yard out to put the Conquerors on top for good.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It was not a pretty game for Kentwood.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/raven.b-it.ca\/portals\/uploads\/kent\/.DIR288\/KWblocked-FG-attemptWEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the hardest on ourselves we\u2019ve been all year,\u201d Norris said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a young team but we\u2019ve had quite a learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Norris said Kentwood came into the game respecting the talent of Gig Harbor quarterback Garrett Gallanger and had prepared the defense accordingly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Defense, Norris stated, was what kept the Conks in the game. They did their best to mix up their coverage schemes, he explained, and it worked.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a really well coached team. They put a lot of pressure on us defensive,\u201d he said. \u201cDefensively we played great. That quarterback threw for 300 yards last week and we held him to 42 yards in the first half.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At halftime the score was tied 3-3.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Tides knotted the score at 10-10 when they blocked a Conquerors punt and recovered the ball in the end zone with 8:53 left in the game. That\u2019s where the score stayed until overtime.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jerrod Dalton made sure Gig Harbor didn\u2019t score again in regulation when he hauled in an interception on the four yard line.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From there, the teams traded field goals, then Gig Harbor went up 16-13 to start the second overtime period.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Hubbard and Thach put together a series of runs that put the Conks ahead for good.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After Thach scored the go-ahead TD he was mobbed in the end zone by the entire squad as the fans who stuck around in the sub-40 degree weather cheered wildly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t panic,\u201d Norris said. \u201cThat\u2019s because of the resolve we\u2019ve been able to gain in these close games in Kent. I think we represented the SPSL North well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood travels to Skyview on Friday for its first round state playoff game.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matt Hubbard had a banner game on the ground for Kentwood in a 19-16 double overtime victory over Gig Harbor on Saturday night at French Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":1505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}