MacArthur’s kick gives Hart a 31-28 win
In the football-crazed Santa Clarita Valley, they will be talking for years about the wild, improbable ending Friday night that saw a golfer, Johnny MacArthur, playing his first year of football, kick a 43-yard field goal with no time left to lift Newhall Hart to a 31-28 victory over Canyon Country Canyon in a Foothill League thriller at Canyon High.
Canyon had rallied from a 28-6 second-half deficit, tying the score with 3:25 left on a three-yard touchdown run by Jason Ferguson.
The game seemed headed to a tie after Sean Crane of Canyon intercepted a B.R. Holbrook pass with 30 seconds left.
But MacArthur, Hart’s free safety, intercepted a Sean Gavin pass on the Hart 16 with 13 seconds left. Then Delano Howell broke off a 58-yard run down to the Canyon 26, going out of bounds with 0.05 of a second left. One more step and the game would have been over. MacArthur came in and drilled the ball through the uprights for the game-winning field goal for Hart (6-0, 1-0), ranked No. 5 in the Southland by The Times.
“That’s the most unbelievable ending I’ve been involved in,” Hart Coach Mike Herrington said.
MacArthur is headed to Pepperdine on a golf scholarship. He’s also an all-league soccer player. His father didn’t want him to play football in his senior year. But MacArthur insisted on trying football.
“I came to every game the last three years and dreamed of playing,” he said before the game. “They had to teach me how to put on pads.”
Like a pressure-filled putt in golf, MacArthur’s strategy is to take a deep breath and focus. “You give it your best,” he said.
The Stanford-bound Howell finished with 212 yards rushing and scored two touchdowns. Ferguson rushed for 151 yards for Canyon (2-4, 0-1).
The Indians seemed to be in cruise control after opening a 28-6 lead at the outset of the third quarter on a 73-yard touchdown run by Demitri Diamond touchdown. Then came a Cowboys comeback. Gavin connected with Kevin Voogt on a five-yard touchdown with 3:38 left in the third quarter.
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