Well, last Friday night their winning streak was stopped one game short of 90. It was a very exciting, dramatic game. I had a sideline pass and was right in the middle of all the excitement. There were over 14,000 people in attendance that night with untold others watching the game on television. The weather was pretty cold (low 20's) by MS standards but it didn't seem to bother too many of our fans. They showed up in droves and easily outnumbered the South Panola side of the stadium.
I actually wrote a long play-by-play version of this post yesterday and somehow lost it before I could get it posted. Here is the short version that will show why I say it was an exciting dramatic game. Even though both teams came in with reputations for prolific offenses (we had averaged 45 pts a game thru 3 earlier playoff games), the defenses were in control during the first half. Both teams used a turnover by the opposing team to score and our halftime score was knotted up 7-7.
We took the ball on our first possession of the second half and went right down the field to score. South Panola responded like the champions that they were and answered on their first possession to make it 14-14. We scored again just before the end of the third quarter but made a huge mistake and missed our extra point to leave them an opening to beat us if they scored and made their XP. They methodically drove down the field and tied things up for the third time. Then they somehow matched our error and missed their extra point too. So there we were, all even at 20 points each.
They held us on downs and we punted down to about the 20 yd line. The South Panola offense is built around a sure thing Division One tailback (220lbs) and an offensive line that averaged 300 pounds. They love to just power up and run over you. That is what they did as they just ground out first down after first down. We finally got them in a fourth down and 1 yard to go situation at our 33 yard line. With that big line and power back, they did not hesitate to go for it with only 4 mintues to go in the game. Everyone in the stadium expected them to bull us over and make that first down as they marched to the winning touchdown. Everyone that is except for eleven Blue and White clad Wildcats digging in at the 33. As expected, they ran a toss sweep to the right as they had done many times already that night. But this time our undersized defense held their ground and threw them for a one yard loss. Hurrah, the ball went over on downs and our spread offense had a little over 3 minutes to pass our way down the field to victory.
We completed 5-6 passes and soon found ourselves on the 18 yard line with 15 seconds to go. Out trotted our kicker with a chance to redeem himself by kicking the game winner. I have watched this player kick all year while announcing the games and I felt like he was money from this distance. I was standing on the 20 yard line with only the guy holding the chains between me and where the ball would be kicked. I was surrounded by 7-8 shoulder carried television cameras and untold still cameras ready to capture the winning kick. South Panola had all 3 timeouts left and burned them all as they tried to ice our kicker. Up it went and I heard the roar from our side of the stadium as the Wildcat bench erupted 5 yards to my left. Then those roars turned to puzzled groans as the officiating crew signaled
no-good.
I was as fooled as all those other people who thought the kick looked good. I had a good view from the 20 yard line at field level but I guess the officials had a better one. South Panola took a knee to run out the final 10 seconds and we were headed to overtime.In Mississippi H.S. football overtimes, each team gets the ball at the 10 yard line and gets four downs to score. We got the ball first and threw a pass to the 2 yard line on first down. We ran it in and scored on the next play to make it 26-20. And then our kicking nightmare continued as our normally reliable kicker hooked the extra point to the left of the upright. (he had pushed the other two misses wide right and must have over compensated) Many of us could already see the 27-26 headline the next day. Fortunately, that brave and sometimes maligned Wildcat defense didn't feel the same way. On first down, SP ran a little bootleg pass play that they had picked 10-12 yards with at least 3 times earlier that night. On this play, our secondary rose to the occasion and broke the pass up. On second down, their bread and butter toss sweep only netted 3 yards and left them facing 3 down and 7 yards to go. Their senior quarterback (who has already signed a D-1 baseball scholarship) dropped back to pass and was soon going to the ground courtesy of a dramatic sack by our undersized (245lbs) nose tackle. Now they faced 4 and goal from the 20 yard line. Their QB dropped back and ran from sideline to sideline as he desperately sought an open receiver. Finally that same 10th grade nose tackle was able to swat his ankle and gain his second sack in a row to make us 5A State Champions. All of us on the sidelines stormed the field and spent the next 30 minutes hugging one another as we realized the enormity of what had been accomplished. The South Panola Tigers had been State Champs for 5 straight years but this year they would be denied.
Out town is still buzzing about the victory. It was pretty cool seeing the story of the nation's longest winning streak (and third longest in history) being ended on the CNN crawler and on Yahoo Sports. I googled the game up and found stories as far away as Honolulu. I can't wait until we can get the players their rings. They sure deserve them.
