TULSA – After ten months of waiting, the Victory Christian football team was able to get out on the field last Friday night with one goal in mind, end the school’s longest losing streak and begin what they hope will be a winning streak that will carry them back to the playoffs.

There’s a lot of football left to be played to see if they can achieve that goal, but for one night at least, the Conquerors played like champions. Things started quickly for the Victory offense when senior quarterback Matt Tedescucci found senior split end Andre Wiley behind the Webster secondary for an early 7-0 lead.
That lead was soon cut when Warrior quarterback Mariano Dillard found Jackie Moore in the corner of the south end zone. But when the extra point fell harmlessly in the end zone, it looked like the Conquerors were going to be able to hold the lead.

That lasted until Webster’s next possession, capped off by Dillard’s 9-yard run. But on the Warriors’ next possession, junior Conqueror linebacker Ray Ihim emerged from underneath a pile of humanity with the ball, giving Victory a first down on the Webster 25 yard line, giving them the break that they seldom managed to create for themselves a year ago.

Five plays later, after having converted a fourth and five with an 8-yard run, junior running back John Michael Hill scampered in from the 12 yard line, which would be the first of three scoring runs in the final 5:03 of the first half.
A near record crowd at Victory Stadium settled back after the ensuing kickoff, feeling confident that this might be the night the losing streak would end, Dillard seemed to put a large dagger in those hopes, when he took the ball and picked his way through the Conqueror defense on his way to a 74-yard touchdown run. But the two-point conversion attempt failed, leaving Victory with a 18-14 deficit.

The question was how they would respond. They’d come back once already, but would they be able to do it again? Wiley helped answer that question on the ensuing kickoff with a 23-yard return that gave Tedescucci and the Victory offense first down on the Webster 42 yard line.

Five plays later, after the Conquerors averted disaster by recovering a Tedescucci fumble at the Webster 13 yard line, Hill took the ball and burst through the Warrior defense, ending the play standing in the end zone with his second score in less than two minutes.

And after the Victory defense picked off Dillard at the Webster 39 yard line, it would be eight plays before Hill bulled over from 4 yards out, giving the Conquerors a 28-18 half time lead and confidence going into the second twenty-four minutes that this team would not simply fold its tent at the first sign of adversity.
And even though Dillard would manage to find the end zone again with 1:55 remaining in the third quarter, the Webster speedster didn’t find the going quite as easy as he did in the first half. Overall, the Warriors ran for 208 yards in the first half – and even though Dillard finished the game with 203 yards rushing on 20 carries, his offense only managed 122 yards total offense in the second half, well under the 252 they ran up in the first twenty-four minutes.

At the same time, dealing with several players going down with cramps in the second half, the Conquerors only managed 93 total yards, while the first half saw them amass 291 yards of total offense. But because of a defense led by the play of junior linemen Kevin Jackson and Tre’ Smith, Victory was able to hold Dillard in check and add a late safety on a bad center snap on a punt to put the finishing touches on a 37-26 victory.

It wasn’t a perfect performance and with a match up with Holland Hall this week, fresh off ending Cascia Hall’s 41-game winning streak, 34-27, all that mattered was that head coach Brent Marley and the entire Conqueror program had a W to put in the record book.

Everyone had a smile on their faces as they left the field and headed back to the locker room. Hill had one of the biggest smiles, as he finished the night with 156 yards on 28 carries to go along with his three touchdowns.
On defense, senior strong safety Jordan Wood led the way with 11 tackles, but he had lots of help. Jackson and senior linebacker Josh Pagtelian had 8 tackles each, while Smith and sophomore defensive end Nick George each racked up 7 tackles apiece.

The Conqueror defense was also opportunistic, as junior cornerback Caleb Bowen picked off two Dillard passes, while Wiley and junior cornerback Daniel King also picked off one pass apiece. The Victory special teams also helped out, as sophomore kicker Cole Taylor was 5-5 in extra points, the kickoff return team rolled up 104 yards on five returns, and the punt return team managed to tackle the Webster punter on the 2 yard line, setting up Ihim’s 2-yard scoring plunge with 4:42 to go in the third quarter.

As far as this week’s game in concerned, it will take an even better effort from the entire team to add a second game to their winning streak. Led by senior running back Kwame Sexton’s 124 yards and senior quarterback Brad Kragthorpe’s 137 yards passing, the Dutch were able to survive a late Cascia Hall comeback to finally win one of the close games that have come to symbolize their rivalry.

But no matter the challenge that faces them this week, Marley and his band of gritty Conquerors have shown the resolve to overcome bad plays and to be able to come back after giving up the lead on a big play. They will certainly have to do that again as they travel to Holland Hall to renew another heated rivalry between two of the area’s top private school programs.