Last second winning kick stuns Tucker and ends season

Zach Sanders kicked a 34-yard field goal barely over the uprights as time expired to lift Statesboro to a 15-14 win over Tucker in the Class AAAA quarterfinals.<br> <br> ``I don&#39;t know what happened,&#39;&#39; Tucker&#39;s Bill Ballard said. ``You . . . well . . . put in there that this was coach Ballard&#39;s fault. I don&#39;t know what cost us the game, but our guys played their hearts out and that&#39;s all you can ever ask for.&#39;&#39;<br> <br> Steve Pennington, Statesboro&#39;s first-year coach, sounded equally perplexed.<br> <br> ``As excited as I am for Statesboro, I feel for Tucker,&#39;&#39; he said. ``We snatched victory from them.&#39;&#39;<br> <br> With 1:13 left in regulation, Tucker appeared to have won the game by stopping Statesboro&#39;s Nick Wedlow on fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line.<br> <br> The Tigers took over on downs with a 14-10 advantage, just needing to run out the clock. On fourth down, however, Ballard ordered his quarterback Dwayne Harris to run out of the end zone for a safety, which closed the margin to 14-12 with 51 seconds left.<br> <br> After Tucker kicked off, Statesboro completed a pair of passes to get into scoring position.<br> <br> With less than 10 seconds left, quarterback David Cone threw to Kinnell Thompson, who tried to get out of bounds to stop the clock. The officials ruled that Thompson was tackled in bounds with 3.3 seconds left; however, because Thompson got the first down, the clock stopped while the ball was being marked at the Tucker 17.<br> <br> Instead of having Cone spike the ball to stop the clock, Pennington ordered his field-goal unit on the field. As soon as the first down was marked, the clock started, the ball was snapped, and Sanders kicked the game winner.