When it ended, which was rather quickly, the Skyrockets had soared and stayed grounded at the same time, all but giving them the District 5-2A Division II crown in their final home game of the season on Senior Night.
For most of the evening, Wellington and Wheeler mirrored each other in their approaches as the two teams entered the game unbeaten in district to determine the outright district leader. Wellington made two key fourth quarter stops and found enough offense to scrape out a 23-14 victory and make the biggest statement of the season in 5-2A DII.
The Skyrockets (7-2, 4-0 in district) claimed outright possession of the district lead with one regular season game remaining.
They could still end up in a tie for the district title with either Wheeler (7-2, 3-1) or Shamrock at the end of the regular season, but Wellington has beaten both those teams, so they’re guaranteed of being the district’s No. 1 playoff seed.
It might not have looked like the most artistic win, but it nonetheless got the job done for the Skyrockets.
“Wheeler’s really good up front on both sides of the ball and their linemen are tough and get after it,” Wellington coach Greg Proffitt said. “They haven’t given up a lot of points so we knew we were going to have to work for everything. We just grinded to the finish in the fourth quarter and I’m super proud of our kids. It was stressful but it was fun.”
There were no 100-yard rushers or 200-yard passers in this one, as the offensive numbers for each team were fairly ordinary but not embarrassing. But there weren’t any turnovers or a plethora of penalties either, resulting in a relatively clean game which was finished in under two hours.
In the first half, Wellington had two solid drives while Wheeler had one. The difference was that Wheeler ended that one drive in the end zone to take a 7-3 halftime lead.
That run was set up by a 32-yard run by quarterback Creed Newkirk.
Wellington kept the ball for the rest of the half and marched down to Wheeler’s 7-yard line, facing fourth-and-goal with four seconds left in the half. The Skyrockets ended the half by getting on the board with Major Brown’s 24-yard field goal to cut it to 7-3 going into the locker room.
“We told our kids every possession was going to count,” Proffitt said. “We feel like we did have some opportunities we left out there, but that’s credit to Wheeler for being a dang good football team.”
After the first half, the third quarter was almost an offensive explosion. Wellington took the first lead midway through the period on a 1-yard run by quarterback Callen Kane to make it 10-7. Wheeler then responded by driving down the field and cashing in on a 2-yard run by Newkirk to make it 14-10.
That lead only lasted 64 seconds. With the ball at midfield, Kane went deep and hit Brenden Garcia on a 50-yard scoring pass with 32 seconds left in the quarter to give the Skyrockets a 17-14 lead which they never relinquished.
The defenses took over again in the fourth quarter. There were three straight turnovers on downs which pretty much summarized the spirit of the game.
Wellington took over at its own 41 after taking over on downs and opted to go for it on fourth and four, but Kane’s completion to Garcia only went for two yards, giving the Mustangs the ball back around midfield.
“It took a guy to make that step up in leading our team got the W,” said Rincon, who was all over the field most of the night. “It’s as good as it can get on Senior Night. My mindset has always been all gas and no breaks, and it was time to go on fourth down.”
The Skyrockets milked the clock from there with a couple of first downs and had the ball at the Wheeler 10 with 10 seconds remaining and had to run another play. They got some insurance when Kane completed a scoring pass to Garcia for the second time in the half to put the exclamation point on the win.
It was a game effort by Wheeler in a tough environment and should prepare the Mustangs for the playoffs.
“They’re a physical football team and we’re a physical football team and we knew it was going to be a heavyweight bout from the kickoff to the last horn,” Wheeler coach Matt Hoover said. “I loved our guys fight. Nobody on our team was even alive the last time we beat Wellington, so you have to overcome that mental block of it and I think our guys for the most part did a pretty job of that.”
Garcia just missed out on a 100-yard receiving game for Wellington, with seven catches for 99 yards.