Eagles Celebrate Homecoming

After a disappointing loss last week, the Eagle’s football team returned home for a homecoming game against Tonkawa. The offense sputtered in the first quarter when Joe Jackson threw an interception trying to hit Aaron Perez on a quick slant, and the Buccaneers took over. They quickly marched down and scored on an inside run. On the ensuing kickoff, the Eagles lost the handle and turned the ball over again, giving Tonkawa great field position. The lead quickly grew as the opposing team scored two more times before halftime, leaving our Eagles with yet another mountain to climb in the second half.

The Eagles came out of the locker room firing away on a reverse pass from Deondre Dunn to quarterback Joe Jackson for a huge gain, but could not punch it in. Later in the quarter, the two hooked up again, this time with Dunn receiving and scoring the first touchdown of the night for Watonga. However, it proved too little, too late, and the Eagles took another defeat.

"The team has struggled at times, yet have learned something about themselves in the process," Coach Zac Maynard expressed. "This game is a lot like life, and it gets hard. The question I asked the team is if they're going to tap out in football, you may tap out on your responsibilities, and that's not what we do. They are fighters, and it might not show on the board, but they're winning in more important areas...they're becoming men."

The Eagles plan on using Maynard's battle cry "Ubuntu" the remainder of the season as their mantra. "Ubuntu" is a South African term coined by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and means "I am because we are." It seems to be the perfect fit for the hand that this team's been dealt.

The Eagles will play at Crescent on Thursday, October 15th, since Fall Break starts on Friday.