“We cracked him two or three times on that play – he just wouldn’t go down.”

 

In a season that never provided the answers that the Victory football team needed, the words of an exhausted Inola football player describing senior Sterling Willis in the last few rays of light from overhead, seems more than appropriate.

On a night when football became the last thing on anyone’s mind - as dozens of fans and friends filled the St. John’s waiting room to overflowing, or huddled around cell phones waiting to get the latest report - there were actually some things that became abundantly clear about the 2008 football season.

Just four years removed from competing for the gold ball against Berryhill, this year’s Conquerors spotted the visiting Chiefs 34 points before finally responding with a 35-yard touchdown pass from junior Jason Burgoyne to sophomore Austin White, just one week removed from watching their emotional leader ended his senior season in the a St. John’s operating room.

It’s understandable that the Victory team might come out in a bit of a fog, with all that had happened that week; after they had fallen far short of the aspirations they had before the season began of playing for another gold ball. After all, it was Sterling and the rest of the seniors that had walked past the silver ball in the trophy case at school, promising that they would be the ones to bring back a gold one instead.

But just like that chilly December night, when the victory bell was sounding on the Berryhill side, this season would not result in a gold ball being placed in the trophy case, nor a silver one either. Another year that Victory didn’t win a championship – but, that’s only if you measure championships in gold and silver balls.

Two thousand years ago, a lame man sat in the depths of despair, unable to take care of himself, when two of the Lord’s apostles came walking by, as he reached for another handout. But just like this year’s team, he didn’t get what he expected.

The Peter and John looked down at the man with compassion and simply said, “Silver and gold have we not, but what we have, we give you. In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.”

On a late November evening, just over two months after the Holland Hall Dutch dealt Brent Marley’s team one of the worst losses in Victory history, 46-7, the students and fans of the Conquerors experienced one of their greatest victories, when Sterling Willis came walking in the gym so he could sit with his team during the boys’ varsity game. Out of the hospital and talking about playing college football next fall.

Every fall, coaches around the country go into the football season knowing that the success and failure of their team will depend largely on the performance of their seniors. And most, when they put up the gear following a 2-8 season, far short of the playoffs, would consider the season a total failure.

But maybe, just maybe, that’s not the way this year’s seniors should remember the last time most of them will ever put on a pair of pads. Especially when we go all the way back to the first game of the season, which saw a young Conqueror team throttle the visiting Okmulgee Bulldogs 41-8, with freshman Caleb Bowen putting the exclamation mark on the performance with an 82-yard kickoff return the first time he touched the ball in varsity competition.

Prior to that, sophomore Michael Nelson had intercepted three passes, senior wide receiver Matt Letney had caught two touchdowns from senior quarterback Jason Turner, and the Victory defense had limited the Bulldogs to just 86 yards total offense. Going into the week three contest at perennial power Tahlequah Sequoyah, everyone was looking for quite a match up.

And the game didn’t disappoint, until Evan Evans’ point after try flew into the humid September night, leaving the Conquerors with a heart wrenching 35-34 defeat in overtime, after Burgoyne had come off the bench to replace Turner and thrown for 329 yards and four touchdowns.

Trailing 28-22 late in the fourth quarter, Burgoyne found senior Brandon Gordon for his second touchdown of the game, and with the extra point coming, the entire Victory crowd just knew they were going to defeat one of the best teams in the state. But after two straight extra points failed, and Evans’ kick found the mark after Brian Salazar’s 1-yard run, all that flowed were weary tears of frustration.

Those same tears and dejected shoulders greeted the Conqueror fans as they descended down on the field in week seven, as Dewey escaped with a 28-27 overtime victory, just moments after everyone knew that White’s 45-yard pass to senior running back Jeremiah Ablorh had given Victory a 21-14 lead and a sure win.

But after Clint Strate hauled in a long pass, putting the ball inside the Conqueror ten, and then Michael Abell cradled a 4-yard toss in the corner of the end zone, the game was sent to overtime, where Victory came up short on another extra point.

However bittersweet the end of those two games were, they, more than anything, showed the highs and lows that the team experienced this year. In week five, the Conquerors notched their second win with a 29-8 dominate win over Blackwell as White won his first start at quarterback, as he threw for 132 yards and a touchdown to Letney.

Willis also led a defense that held Blackwell to 117 yards as he racked up 14 tackles and blocked a punt that resulted in a safety, giving Victory its first points of the game.

There were also the first three quarters of the Claremore Sequoyah game, where the state runners-up Eagles only led only 20-19, before their dominating ground game took over and they ran away with a 41-19 win. The score was far from indicative of how worried the Claremore sideline was as Burgoyne’s darts found Conqueror receivers for 309 yards and three touchdowns.

This was a team that defeated one playoff team (Okmulgee), took two playoff teams to overtime, and then took the second best team in Class 3A to the limits before they put the game away. That doesn’t sound like a 2-8 team, but then, there were also the low points in the season.

Following an overtime loss to Tahlequah Sequoyah in week three, Victory had to go to defending 2A state champion Cascia Hall, who had a two game winning streak over the Conquerors after lost to Victory in ’04 and ‘05. Even though the Willis led defense held the Commandos to just 24 points and 301 total yards, Cascia Hall harassed Burgoyne into four interceptions, while allowing just 99 Victory yards.

There was the long road trip to Perkins that got even longer after the Conquerors were shutout, while Perkins ground out 291 yards on the ground on its way to a 19-0 win and Victory’s second shutout of the year. The loss overshadowed a 22-tackle performance by senior linebacker Robert Redmond, who would finish the year with 152 tackles. Willis and senior lineman Matt Dumond also racked up 19 tackles in a gritty effort on a cold fall evening.

There was the shell-shocked first half against Berryhill, and then there was the game that didn’t seem to ever treat the Conquerors fairly. Every time things looked up against Inola, something went wrong – a penalty, a turnover or a busted play. A team that only rushed for 748 yards all season amassed 242 yards on the ground, 134 of those coming from Ablorh, but none of those runs took him into the end zone.

In the end, although the Longhorns only ended up with seven more yards in total offense than the Conquerors, the scoreboard showed a 24-7 final score. But then, there were few in the Victory stands who took a second look, as their thoughts and prayers had turned to Sterling who was being flown by helicopter to Tulsa.

What a roller coaster ride for head coach Brent Marley and his coaching staff, Zac Kemp, David Slatton, Chad Beasley, Casey Willis and Chad Bowen. But no matter what happened, no matter how dark things may have seemed at times, this group of men refused to allow their team to do anything but strap up and go play the next game.

Offensively, it was the pass that took the Conquerors most of the way this year, even though time was split between three quarterbacks. Turner began the year as the starter, but after an injury, the job was handled by White and Burgoyne. The latter led the team with 1,051 yards passing and 10 touchdown passes.

The threesome’s favorite receiver was Letney, who collected 55 catches for 741 yards and 7 touchdowns. The senior split end also added 189 yards rushing and one touchdown.

Ablorh was the team’s leading rusher with 220 yards and one touchdown. Maybe the most diverse of the team’s offensive weapons was Gordon, who 269 yards total offense, plus 4 touchdowns rushing and 3 touchdowns receiving.

Defensively, Dumond finished second on the team in tackles with 114, while senior linebacker Ryan Davis tied Willis with 103 tackles, junior lineman Alex Oden added 94 tackles, and Ablorh corralled 90 ball carriers, while recording 9 tackles for loss, second behind Willis’ 14.

And where a 2-8 team may not seem like it has a lot to show for itself, Gordon, Dumond, Willis, Alborh, Letney, Davis, Redmond, Joel Horton and Ricky Altizer were all named to the All-District squad.

Redmond and Dumond were also named to the Class 3A All-State East Roster, and Willis, who also led the team with 3 blocked kicks, on his way to being named honor mention on the Tulsa World’s All-State team.

Not bad for a group of seniors, most of which played both ways, seldom taking a play off; a group of seniors who led a roster of 27 young men into battle each week, with only four juniors on the squad and numerous sophomores and freshmen on the starting rosters. A group of seniors who entered the season intending to write the next page in Victory football history.

That leaves this program with just one question, we all know where we have been – where is the program heading in the future? Cascia Hall is going through their winter workouts as state champions, which they say is added incentive to work that much harder, so they won’t let the Commando tradition down.

Several years ago, the Victory football program invoked a saying, “Tradition never graduates.” What is Victory tradition?

It’s not gold balls, silver balls, district championships or all-state performers, although that is all exciting and things that get everyone excited. But the tradition that Victory football has is one of godly men who learn to face the issues of life with faith and a tenacity that never allows them to quit.

Standing there, looking into the eyes of that young man from Inola, the importance of football having disappeared into the night, I was reminded why my kids go to Victory, and why Conqueror football is something special - because God uses the adversity of life to teach us how to compete in life.

A successful coach was asked after winning another championship how successful he considered the season, and his response was a question, “How many doctors and lawyers, and men who will contribute to society, and raise their kids will this team produce? Ask me that question in a few years.”

When Sterling Willis and the rest of the seniors walk across stage in May, they won’t have a gold ball to show their kids, but they will have a faith and confidence of who their God is that they can not only give their kids, but that they can give to a dying and hurting world that desperately needs to know that God is real and that He still makes a difference in their lives.

Maybe the final record for this team should be 1-0.