Published: August 25, 2008 03:41 pm            

The streak ends on the great drive

No matter what the Murray County Indians do the rest of this season and no matter where they finish in the revamped Region 7-4A, no one can take away what they accomplished on Saturday night.

At Murray Field, the Indians ended a 21-game losing streak by defeating Gainesville’s East Hall, 17-13.

Murray was sick of talking, hearing and reading about the streak and, to be honest, The Daily Citizen was sick of writing about it. At the same time, was impossible to act as if didn’t exist.

The streak had been old news to Indians coach Josh Lowe for some time.

“That’s not a story anymore,” Lowe said in early May at the Indians’ first spring practice. “We’re focusing on the future, on today and tomorrow and looking forward.”

On Saturday, there were times when the present and future didn’t look too promising. But the stubborn Indians didn’t quit.

The toughest blow was a first-quarter fumble by quarterback Austin Williams which was recovered by a Viking defender who ran it in for a touchdown, silencing a packed Murray Field crowd and putting the Indians in a 7-0 hole. In the past a lay like that might have set off a chain reaction of disaster.

But Williams remained undeterred.

“Coach said no matter what, if they score first we just got to get right back in there and play, and that’s what we did,” he said.

Momentum appeared to be on East Hall’s side going into halftime, because they had possession with one minute remaining and could have ran out the clock. Up 7-0, the Vikings would have got the ball to start the third quarter against what appeared at the time to be a punchless Murray offense.

But they gave the Indians a ray of hope by deciding to pass the ball with 1:15 left in the half, and the Indians seized the moment. James Hefner intercepted a pass and returned it to the Vikings’ 22.

With four seconds to go in the half, the Indians appeared as though they were settling for a field goal from Viking 6. But when the Indians lined up for a field goal, it caught Vikings coach Bryan Gray off guard and forced him to call his final timeout.

When play resumed, the Indians were no longer lined up for a kick. Williamz threw a TD pass to Luke Mealer.

“I just think that if you want to win games, some times you’ve got to step up and make tough calls,” Lowe said. “They called a timeout, they thought we were going to kick a field goal, so we drew up an offensive play, it was a good call by (offensive coordinator Mike) Hill. That gave us a huge amount of momentum going into the half.”

East Hall reclaimed the lead in third quarter, but Murray kept it close — something they weren’t always able to do in the recent past.

They blocked and extra point and added their own field to make it a 13-10 game.

Midway through the fourth quarter the Indians made their move.

Unlike so many past games when Murray fell short of victory, they would prevail with memorable plays, such as Jake White’s 10-yard, bulldozing rush in which he dragged nearly the entire Vikings defense for 5 yards by himself. Then there was the 11th play of the drive when Williams, with what seemed like an unlimited amount of time provided by the offensive line, was able to roll to the right, bootleg left, and deliver a perfect strike to Luke Mealer for 32 yards to put the Indians on East Hall’s 16 with just over a minute remaining.

Maybe this was Murray’s game to win.

“Austin made an impossible throw in an impossible situation,” said Bajer. “And the linemen came out and did their jobs.”

All of a sudden, Murray could smell victory. And then, Williams scored on a 3 yard rush up the middle.

East Hall still had one last fight in them, but so did Murray.

Josh Ziegler intercepted a Vikings pass to seal the victory.

Hold on. There’s a flag on the play with no time on the clock. Are you serious?

As the silenced crowd watched on, a referee ran to the Indians sidelines and conversed with Lowe, who turned to face the sidelines and the crowd and put his arms up in the air, prompting a cheer that could be heard in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The penalty was on East Hall and it was declined.

The game was over, and so was the infamous streak.

Fans, players and coaches congregated on the field, sharing hugs, laughs and even tears.

After all the Indians had gone through, the night was theirs to share with the rest of the community.

“We were ready,” said Bajer, who was all but speechless. “We were ready to end this tonight. I can’t even describe it, it was just awesome. It felt like a burden had been lifted of of mine and everybody’s shoulders. My teammates, the coaches, everybody.”

It’s official: The Indians losing streak is no longer a story.



Adam Krohn is a sports writer for the Daily Citizen.

        

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