My Last Football Game

The whole team was sitting in the locker room, we couldn’t believe we were sitting in a position to possible beat arguably one of the best teams in the state. We all knew we probably got lucky our last two playoff games but it didn’t matter much because we knew nobody had ever picked us throughout the whole season and we knew that we had the team to try to pull off one of the biggest upsets in Maine state football history it was due or die time it almost felt like we had everyone routing for us, but they all doubt us because this team hasn’t lost a game in three years and a lot of people compared us to the last time we played these guys, but we knew we were ready.It was the end of September when we last played Wells it was homecoming and everyone in the locker room was ready to “kick the shit out of them”. We headed into that game putting up a long drive and scored to set the tone for the game or what we thought would be the tone setter. Before I knew it was half time and it felt like I had played two whole games because of how physical this team was. At half time the score was 28-13 and nobody had the mindset to go back on the field and try to stop these guys they were just too physical. Half through the third the game had turned into running time and JV went in and every senior had just played there last Homecoming game of their football careers.Something just felt different about this game then the last time we played them we had improved a lot since the last time we played them our young guys were stepping up and they could really help us win. Our upperclassmen seemed to step up there game too they had been playing like we had been here before calm cool and collective. Thats how all of our playoff games went that season it seemed like when the going got tuft we would stick to together and would try to solve the solution and not the problem. There was no question about this if you looked at our last two playoff games.We had just lost to Lisbon in my last home game which stung a lot because that meant we wouldn’t have a home playoff game and we would lose to our big time rival for most kids on the team since the third grade, so losing your last home game and then losing to your biggest rival was like a double kick to the face. There was a silver lining though to the loss we would get to play them again and hopefully end there season at their place. We would play in the “Mud Bowl” at there field and we would end up beating them 6-0 in overtime. The next week would play Madison to try to have the right to go to the Southern Maine FInals. We would end up playing that game in the mud again and go into overtime like the previous week, but the game was more of a shoot out and in those games the first person to make a mistake like turn the ball over stupid penalties or other things that could set a team back often times loses. We had just scored in overtime and they had the ball to score too. Instead of going for two and tieing the game they decided to through in all the marbles and go for two and try to win the game. Which made sense since we hadn’t stopped them in the red zone all game. The QB for Madison would take the snap and roll to the right and have a man wide open in the end zone, all for the QB to slip and cost his team a chance to move on. I guess you could sta we got lucky.Walking out of the wells locker room I got the butterflies in my stomach leading the linemen out to meet the skill positions, with one of my closest friends by my side, walking past our sidelines and having the whole community behind our backs. We would warm up and before I knew it we were two minutes away from playing what could be one of the biggest game of our lives. Before the game started Coach D pulled all of the seniors in and told all of us that he loved us and you could hear him tear up and told us he loved us and that was huge. We all knew we could do it win this game at the opening kick off we received the ball and we had all the hype in the world we all knew we had a solid chance to win this game. We got the ball and started our drive, we ran a QB option and it seemed like for that ten seconds all the hype we were talking about and the moments that lead to this with a little bit of luck we would win this game. Our QB would run for a 30 yard scamper and would be tackled out of bounds. I knew we would be able to win the game at that point we were ready mental and physically, but as soon as that crossed my mind our starting QB would get hurt on the same play and was out for the game. After that we lost all of motivation it was like we got the wind taken out of us. Before I knew it I was losing big in what would be my last football game. I honestly took so much in from that game I remember the crowd noise what the field smelled like and other little things you wouldn’t think remember about that game.

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