CHOCOWINITY — Southside coach DeWayne Kellum’s final home game began with a heartwarming ceremony but ended in heartbreaking fashion as Riverside rallied to score the game-winning touchdown with under a minute left to go in the fourth quarter to earn a 31-28 victory and spoil the longtime coach’s last game at The Nest.
With 4:35 to go in the game, the Seahawks scored a go-ahead touchdown on an Andrew Jones 1-yard run to take a 28-25 lead and appeared to be headed toward victory, but the Knights had other plans.
After sputtering on the ensuing possession, the Riverside defense came up with a stop and received a punt at the Seahawks’ 43-yard line with 1:36 remaining.
After three downs the Knights had only moved eight yards and faced a crucial 4th-and-2 situation with no timeouts left. With the game on the line, quarterback Matt Wisniweski threw a screen pass to Jadarian Brown who had a wall of linemen in front of him and he weaved his away around his blockers and past the defenders to scramble in the end zone for the game-winning score.
“We had been running that play all year and tonight when we ran it and it was only a shoe-string tackle away from being a big play,” McGill said. “(Southside) was bringing the house and I felt like it could work. I didn’t think we would score, I was just trying to get a first down.”
The play salvaged what would have been a blown opportunity for the Knights as they began the game taking a 12-0 lead after their first two possessions as Donovan Brown scored on a 10-yard run before Jadarian Brown reached the end zone on a 1-yard score.
Riverside’s hot start took the buzz away from a hometown crowd that showed up to give Seahawks’ retiring coach Kellum a proper send off.
Before the contest started, Kellum was recognized in a surprise ceremony hosted by principal Rick Anderson and athletic director Sean White and featured a host of former players and friends that came to say goodbye.
“I was totally surprised by the ceremony, they did a good job of keeping it a secret,” Kellum said.
As far as his thoughts on his final home game, in typical Kellum fashion his mind was already on the next week’s game.
“I can’t think about that right now,” Kellum said. “We got to go ahead and win another ball game and try to get ourselves in a better position.”
After falling behind 12-0, the Seahawks roared back into the game with a 21-point second quarter as Andrew Jones scored twice before sophomore JV call-up Donald Moore recovered a fumble on a botched 44-yard field goal attempt by Riverside right before the end of the half and returned it 64 yards to give his team a 21-19 lead at the end of the first half.

Riverside    12    7    0    12    —    31
Southside    0    21    0    7    —    28

                             RHS         SHS
First downs            14          16
Rushes-yards        31- 142     43-201
Comp-att-int          8-15-1        5-10
Passing yards        156            50
Fumbles-lost          2-1           3-1
Penalties-yards      3-30           2-10
Punts                  4-31           3-24

Scoring Summary
R — Donovan Brown 10 run (Tyler Burch kick failed), 8:30, 1st.
R — Jadarian Brown 1 run (two points failed), 7:13, 1st.
S — Andrew Jones 8 run (Kyle White kick), 9:45, 2nd.
R — Brown 3 run (Burch kick), 2:13, 2nd.
S — Jones 3 run (White kick), :47, 2nd.
S — Donald Moore  64 fumble recovery (White kick), 0:00, 2nd.
R — Brown 10 run (two points failed), 9:21, 4th.
S — Jones 1 run (White kick), 4:35, 4th,
R  — Brown 35 pass from Matt Wisniewski (Burch kick failed), :52, 4th.