UTICA – Plagued by penalties and a porous second-half pass defense, the Hinds AHS War Dawgs’ march toward a Class 2A state championship was derailed by Union, 28-21.

The War Dawgs, who had defeated Taylorsville in the first round, held a 14-0 halftime lead before watching the Yellow Jackets score 28 points – all on Jacob Massey touchdown runs.

&#8220We got robbed. You saw it,” a despondent Hinds AHS coach Michael Fields said. &#8220They ought to be 20 and 0. We got robbed. Every time we got a first down, they called a penalty. Union’s offensive line moved early on every play and never got called. That’s all I have to say.”

The War Dawgs were flagged 11 times for 99 yards in the game and had five holding penalties and even a call for an equipment violation.

Penalties aside, the Yellow Jackets, held to 21 yards on 19 plays in the first half, came out in the second half smoking.

&#8220All of us believe in one another and after that first half, we knew we had to pick each other up,” Massey said. &#8220We came out in the second half and took it to ‘em.”

The Jackets took the second-half kickoff and drove 55 yards in nine plays ending in Massey scoring the first of his touchdown runs.

After forcing a Hinds’ punt, Union marched 66 yards in six plays and capped the drive witha 25-yard Massey run to get Union to within two points, 14-12.

The War Dawgs kept the lead into the fourth quarter and extended the lead to 21-12 after Joshua King scored on an 11-yard touchdown run. King ran for 156 yards on 26 carries and scored two of the War Dawgs’ touchdowns. The last put Hinds in the lead with 8 minutes, 53 seconds to play. The touchdown was set up by a Jamichael Sanders interception.

But as they had through the entire second half, Union drove right down the field. Exploiting gaping holes in the pass defense down the middle of the field, it took the Jackets’ six plays to drive 65 yards. Massey completed 4 of 5 passes for 60 yards, and scored on a 1-yard keeper to get the score to 21-20.

On Hinds’ next possession, three plays resulted in 9 yards and change leaving Hinds with a fourth-and-inches at its own 45. Field elected to go for it and Lawrence Dotson, who scored the Dawgs’ first touchdown of the game, was stopped just short giving the ball back to Union.

Massey ran for 57 of the 62 yards on the drive and scored on a 2-yard plunge with 3:40 to play.

On Hinds’ last possession, it was flagged for two holdings and a false start penalty and came up short on a fourth-and-24 play.

&#8220We could feel the momentum shift during halftime,” Massey said. &#8220We knew we were going to win this game.”