Lixil pulls off latest miraculous victory, stuns IBM

KAWASAKI (Oct. 9)—The team that refuses to quit and had pulled off two miraculous finishes in the spring scraped together another one in the fall. This might have been the most impressive one yet.

The Lixil Deers got an interception that led to the winning touchdown in the final minute, allowing them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and stun the IBM BigBlue 52-48 in a thriller before 1,122 at Fujitsu Stadium Kawasaki.

Shohei Kato threw his sixth touchdown pass of the day, a 5-yarder to Yasushi Nakagawa, with 42 seconds left to give the Deers their first and only lead in a game in which they continued to plug away despite trailing by as much as 18 points twice.

“Since the spring, we practiced many times simulating this situation in which there was a two-possession difference,” Lixil head coach Kiyoyuki Mori said. “For us, we worked on how we respond in a tight game like this, how do we use up the clock, how do we put away the victory, on defense how do we stop the clock.”

Kato, coming off a disastrous performance in a 27-13 loss to the Obic Seagulls the previous week, was virtually unstoppable in the second half and finished 37 of 52 for 442 yards. Just as importantly, he had no interceptions.

Turnovers made the difference, as IBM’s Kevin Craft, making his first appearance since injuring his shoulder in the spring, had four interceptions, none bigger than the one rookie linebacker Akira Ando returned 27 yards to the IBM 19 with 1:00 left and the BigBlue leading 48-45.

The Deers’ victory gave them a measure of revenge for their 21-20 loss to IBM in the final of the spring Pearl Bowl tournament, when they opted to go for a 2-point conversion after scoring with :48 left but came up short. En route to the final, the Deers knocked off the Fujitsu Frontiers 32-28 with a Kato touchdown pass in the last 24 seconds, then shocked Obic in the semifinals 21-16 on Naoki Maeda’s 74-yard punt return with :38 left.

“That’s their team, they fight hard on every play,” IBM head coach Shinzo Yamada said. “You’ve seen it in the spring.”

Lixil, which had beaten the Nojima Sagamihara Rise 24-21 in overtime on Sept. 10 after tying the game with a fourth-quarter touchdown, improved to 3-1 and moved into solid position to be among the top four seeds for the playoffs. IBM dropped to 2-2 heading into a clash with Obic.

For most of Sunday’s game, in which the teams combined for 1,106 yards of offense, it looked like Craft would have a successful return. Taking over for rookie Yuki Masamoto in the second quarter, he completed 18 of 31 passes for 326 yards and two touchdowns, while also running for a score himself. But on his first two interceptions—both by Tadanari Sano, and the second in the end zone—he underthrew his receivers.

“The image of him when he was 100 percent strength and right now is maybe it’s 89 percent or 90-something percent,” Yamada said of Craft. “And that 10 percent just got the ball short I guess.”

The unsung star of the IBM offense was bruising running back Tomokazu Sueyoshi, who rushed for three touchdowns and 97 yards on just nine carries. On his and the game’s first touchdown, a 15-yarder on the first play of the second quarter, he bounced off a series of defenders like a pinball to score.

But it was all overshadowed by Lixil’s latest prestidigitation.

After rookie wide receiver Tatsuya Kureta bulled into the end zone with a 4-yard pass from Kato to cut IBM’s lead to three points, the BigBlue needed only to make 2:12 disappear from the clock to preserve the victory. Somehow, the ball magically ended up back in the Deers’ hands, not only close enough for a potentially winning field goal, but for a go-ahead touchdown.

IBM, starting at the 13 in an effort to run out the clock, got a first down on 3rd-and-10 when Sueyoshi took a pass from Craft and rambled 23 yards. But two runs lost two yards, and on 3rd-and-12, Ando picked off a Craft pass and tightroped down the left sideline to the IBM 19.

“If we got that first down, we would have had a win,” Yamada said of Craft going for the first down with a pass. “So we went for the win. I just told Kevin, ‘If he’s wide open just throw it, if not just kneel down, like a sack, or try to run it. But he saw something different and the guy was there.”

Said Lixil’s Mori: “It could be called lucky [for us], but they were in a tough situation.”

With the door to victory suddenly opened, Kato took a big step forward by running 14 yards on a quarterback draw to the 5. He then connected with a flare pass to the left side to Nakagawa, who led all receivers with nine receptions for 109 yards and two touchdowns.

“If I threw it [on the first play], there was a risk of an interception,” Kato said. “By my running, it reduces the risk just that much. That’s what we chose after talking with the coach.” On the touchdown, he added, “I thought about how they defended us in each half, and just went for the pass. If it was unsuccessful, we still had a choice of a run or a pass. We wanted to go into the next play with a high tempo.”

IBM, however, was down but not completely out. The BigBlue still had 42 seconds to march 75 yards and pull off a miracle of their own. And they gave it an impressive shot. Craft completed consecutive passes of 20 yards each, and after a pair of incompletions, Sueyoshi ran 10 yards to put the ball on the Lixil 25 with :04 remaining.

But it was Lixil’s Ando who came down with Craft’s Hail Mary pass at the goal line for his second interception of the game and third this season. Lixil now has 11 in four games.

For Kato, there was redemption after the fiasco in the Obic game, when he completed just 15 of 40 passes for 194 yards and a touchdown with three interceptions. One difference was that while he felt the pressure of Obic’s defensive bookends Kevin Jackson and B.J. Beatty, IBM was missing its main pass rusher in James Brooks, who sat out the game with an undisclosed injury.

“More than trying to forget [the loss], I used it to take a deep look at myself,” Kato said. “Obic had Kevin Jackson and B.J. and I made myself feel I was under more pressure than usual. Today, if I got tackled, it’s not a problem; if I got sacked, no problem. Just think about the next play. From that perspective, I made use of the loss.”

While certainly one of his more satisfying victories, Kato put the win in perspective.

“I’m really happy that in a high-scoring game, our offense could come and pull off the win,” Kato said. “But it’s just one game in the season. We’re not the champions or into the final.”

Kato was at his best executing the two-minute drill at the end of the first half. Trailing 28-10 with 1:21 left, Kato completed seven of eight passes to complete a 74-yard drive with a 10-yard TD pass to Nakagawa.

“To say he’s in good form or not, for example, even Aaron Rodgers or [Tom] Brady are sometimes off,” Mori said of Kato. “Today, we fell behind by three possessions in the second half. Even so, he didn’t panic and didn’t aim for the big play.

“If the opponent didn’t make a mistake, we might not have won. All we could do was go hard to score each time we could. Kato himself didn’t try to overdo it. He did a good job completing the passes he needed to.”

Tomoya Okabe had a 12-yard touchdown run for the Deers, while Katsuya Nagakawa caught eight passes for 95 yards and a touchdown and Maeda and Yasuhiro Miyamoto hauled in Kato’s other TD tosses. Miyamoto and Kento Suzuki each had six catches. Daisuke Aoki, who hit the upright with a chip-shot 19-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter, kicked a 34-yarder in the second.

For IBM, Takeshi Kurihara had seven receptions for 101 yards and two touchdowns, including an 82-yard catch-and-run. John Stanton caught eight passes for 96 yards. The BigBlue’s second touchdown came when Kureta fumbled after a reception and defensive back Daisuke Hoso picked up the ball and returned it 34 yards.

IBM also lost a fumble, when Atsushi Uehiro lost the ball on a punt return and longtime running back Yasuhiro Maruta recovered at the IBM 33 in the second quarter. As with their first three interceptions later in the game, the Deers capitalized on the turnover and came away with a touchdown.

“It’s really disappointing,” Yamada said. “We had our chances. But they played well.”

—Ken Marantz for the X-League