On Friday, November 2nd Sahuaro’s football team played their first home playoff game since 1999 against Glendale. Glendale came into the game with the #1 ranked offense and Sahauro with the #2 defense. It was certainly going to be a tough and hard fought battle.

To open up the game, Glendale won the coin toss and wanted to receive. Sahuaro’s kicking team however, forced a fumble and recovered the ball to make Sahuaro start with great field position. The Cougar offense had almost no problem moving down the field, and running back Cameron Williams scored the first points of the game on a rushing touchdown. Glendale answered right back though and scored easily to tie the game at 7 apiece. Spectators could tell from that moment this was going to be the toughest game of the year. Nothing like playoff football to end a week!

In only the 1st quarter, Sahuaro faced an early must-win situation. On a second and long, Sahuaro’s Trayvion White-Austin broke a long first down run to keep the drive moving, but more importantly, keep our defense off the field so they could get their much-needed rest. Shortly after the long run, Cameron Williams broke another long run like he always does, to give Sahuaro the lead at 14-7. Glendale encountered their own must-win situation on a third down and got the first to keep their offense on the field. That gave them momentum as they scored quickly after getting the crucial first down to tie the game 14-14.

On the kickoff after the Glendale score, Glendale forced a fumble. Quickly after forcing the turnover, Glendale scored another touchdown to give them the lead at 21-14. Glendale gained momentum and forced the Cougars to punt, following the Glendale touchdown. To further add damage against the Cougars, on the first play following the punt, Sahuaro allowed Glendale’s running back to break a long run all the way to the 4-yard line, which led to another Glendale touchdown, 28-14. Luckily to close out the second quarter, Cameron Williams rushed the ball for the final touchdown before halftime, making Sahuaro only a touchdown away at 28-21.

To start off the third quarter, Trayvion White-Austin helped get the Cougars offense started by scoring the tying touchdown 28-28. Glendale answered back however, and the score became 35-28. Following the Glendale score, three of the Cougar linemen shifted to the right, and Trayvion White-Austin was put in motion.  As the ball was snapped, he was handed the football and the shifted linemen paved the way for him to score the game-tying touchdown. On a Glendale third down, Sahuaro linebacker Jakob Goerke, sacked Glendale’s quarterback forcing them to punt. The Glendale punter, punted the ball awfully – barely getting the ball past 15 yards, and the Sahuaro offense capitalized, scoring the go ahead score to make it 42-35. Continuing this back and forth affair Glendale scored another touchdown to tie the game at 42 apiece. Answering right back, the man Sahuaro can count on, Cameron Williams, scored the go ahead touchdown to put the Cougars back on top at 49-42. Glendale scored right back, but on a questionable decision, they tried to go to 2 but failed, 49-48.

The Sahuaro offense just ran the ball to eat up the clock and with a final kneel, Sahuaro won their first playoff game in almost 20 years. When asked, “What was going through your mind at the end of the game right before you won?”, linebacker and defensive end Max Lockwood said, “…I hadn’t felt more relieved in my football career, I just had to trust my offense to hold on to the ball.” Looking to next week’s game,  left guard Ben Jackson said, “If we prepare how we should and do what we will, then it should go our way.” Both Jakob Goerke and Chris Lochhead thought that the best play of the game was when Jakob sacked Glendale’s quarterback to seal the victory.

Sahuaro’s next playoff game is at home against Seton Catholic Prep at 7:00 pm.