Eagles Notch Their First Win

It took an ice storm, power outages, and a push to a Saturday afternoon game for the Eagles to get their first win of the season. The Watonga Eagles took on another Eagles team from Oklahoma Christian Academy in Edmond for their last home game of the regular season, which happened to also be Senior Day. Aaron Perez, Nic Mata, Kannon Kearney, Brendan Cole, Junior Clay, Luis Mata, Kyle Brown, Kerby Easter, and Tucker Estep stepped onto the field for the final time at the Eagles' Nest and wanted nothing more than to go out with a win. The team came out firing off the ball on offense, and on a quick catch from Perez and pitch to Chris Sanders, they were off for an apparent score. The touchdown was wiped out, due to an illegal forward pass. The offense continued to push, but lost the ball on a strip by the defense near the goalline. The Eagles defense came out and did something that they haven't done all season, swarm tackle. On fourth down, the opponent's snap went over the head of the quarterback, and the Eagles attacked, led by Kannon Kearney and Elijah Lauminick, resulting in a huge turnover on downs. Nic Mata took a run for his biggest run of the season, but penalties forced the team backwards, causing the offense to stall. The teams went back and forth without a score, with only Kearney's interception against the opposing team being one of the few highlights of the half.

The second half saw our Eagles offense take control, running the ball and completing some short passes before Joe Jackson bulldozed his way across the plane for the first score of the day, The 2-point conversion to Deondre Dunn on a jump pass from Jackson moved the score to 8-0. The defense tightened up for the rest of the third, with Dunn, Chris Sanders, and Brendan Cole breaking up passes, while Kyle Brown and Ernesto Duenez controlled the run game.

The start of the fourth turned into a barn-burner, when the opponent scored after a long sustained drive, bringing the score to 14-8. The Eagles offense moved in the right direction for short gains, before giving it up without a score. With the visiting team getting yards and momentum, it was up to the defense to seal the victory. After two successful stops in the red zone, Aaron Perez rips a ball out of the receiver's hands before he could reel it in at the back of the endzone, and Brendan Cole blows up their final attempt on fourth down by sticking his receiver and popping the ball free.

For the first time, the Eagles got into Victory formation and ended the game, giving them their first win. Coach Maynard was very pleased with the effort of the team and grateful for the senior group.

"They have fought hard all year, and it's good to see the seniors get a win on their day. I'm glad we finally got one under our belt, it may spark some energy for next week."

The Eagles will travel to Hinton on Friday night for the last game of the regular season, before starting the playoffs. Due to COVID, all teams are allowed to participate in the state playoffs, so the Eagles will have at least one more game this year. Again, watongaeagles.tv will be streaming the event with Derrick Jenkins and Stephen Lake on the call, so if you can't make the game, it will be live online. Game starts at 7pm.