Despite the rivalry and the desire to win on the gridiron, Milton and Pace came together Friday night before their spring game to honor the late former Milton head coach Mike McMillion, who was killed in an auto accident on May 12.
Both sides of the football field were like with the people he cared about most other than his family, which are the students.
After the memorial was complete the silence that was observed to honor a fallen coach was replaced by the popping of helmets and shoulder pads with a tenor of coaches and fans calling out from the sidelines and beyond.
It might have been a spring game, but any time Milton and Pace tangle it is going to be one for the ages and this one didn’t disappoint. The Patriots scored in the final seconds for a 10-7 victory.
With the clock winding down, Pace and Milton were tied at 7-7, but it was Mickey Lindsey’s Patriots who possessed the ball.
Even though the Patriots were flagged for an ill-timed holding penalty, Pace seemed destined to tally the final score behind the running of Anthony Johnson and the passing of Brett Birmingham.
Johnson, who carried the ball 17 times for 99 yards and a touchdown, put the Patriots on the Panthers with a 10 yard carry.
Birmingham spiked the ball to stop the clock with 18 seconds remaining.
On third down Birmingham hit Jamond Hadnot for a 10 yard completion to put Pace on the Milton 11 with 6.6 seconds remaining.
That is when Lindsey called on kicker Cameron Bozeman to finish the job as he kicked at 28 yard field goal to seal the win.
“It is your typical Pace and Milton football game,” said Pace Head Coach Mickey Lindsey. “Milton got after us and we got after them. We just had more points at the end.”
The last time the Panthers were on their home field it was rather embarrassing for Panther’s Head Coach Chaffin Marsh.
“We are a very young team and we have a very young quarterback,” Marsh said following the game. “The kids are disappointed with the loss, but we have to look at where we are at and where we want to go.
“The last time we were on this field we gave up 50 points and basically tonight we finished tied 7-7 so I am very pleased and know we are going to get better this summer.”
In tonight’s spring game teams were not allowed to challenge punts, field goals, or extra points.
Milton started out the game very slow with sophomore Aubrey Williams running the offense as they were held to just three plays which netted one yard.
Pace on the other hand saw Birmingham complete a 14 yard pass to start their first possession and then fed the Panthers a steady diet of Johnson carrying the ball until he punched it in from one yard out with 6:36 remaining in the third quarter.
“We had a good 20 days of spring practice and I saw some good things here on the field tonight,” said Lindsey. “Now we have to direct our focus to our summer program and get ready for this fall.”
Milton took the only Patriot miscue, an interception thrown by Birmingham, and worked their way down the field 69 yards to tie the game as Jordan Rich banged his way from nine yards out for Milton’s only score with 8:37 to go in the fourth quarter.
“We started out a little slow, but Aubrey got over his butterflies in the fourth quarter and we started to put things together,” said Marsh.
In the first half involving the junior varsity and the varsity second string players neither team could score, but did manage to cross midfield a couple of times.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Pace kicks its way past Milton 10-7