December 6th, 2013, the second greatest football memory I’ve ever had. We had just finished dominating Albemarle High 53-21 in the final round of the play offs. The whole team was ecstatic sliding around in a mud hole, which just 2 hours prior was covered with a layer of black and gold paint and dead grass. Not only did we dominate a team most people expected us to lose to, but we also had a chance at redemption against the team that beat us in last year’s state game. The next week was spent preparing mentally and physically for our hardest game of the season and the first ever state game I was going to play in.

Our bus was scheduled to leave the day before the state game which was that following Saturday. The whole week was spent watching film of next week’s opponents, the Plymouth High Vikings. Both of our teams had never faced competition like one another all year, and due to our disappointing loss to Swain High earlier in the year we where once again predicted to lose which only gave us another reason to strive for victory.

The night before the game while the team was at the hotel I remember all the seniors and most of the juniors being really serious and focused on the upcoming game. it was strange to see them like that, most of them are always joking or having a good right before a game. It made me both nervous and excited because it made me realize how important this game was to those of them who could possibly never play again in their life, but it also made me realize that no one on our team that stepped foot on that field the next day was going to hold back an ounce of what we were capable of doing.

The next morning on the bus ride to Wake Forest everyone was dead silent and completely focused on what we had to do to come home as the champions. No much was said until we got warmed up, then Coach Nelson gave us Traditional before game speech on why we were there that day and what we had to do to win.

As soon as the game started the tempo and intensity on the field raised tenfold, with everyone realizing after the first kick off this was going to be a fight. the game was neck and neck the whole time, neither us nor Plymouth were willing to give an inch. the game came down to the last 36 second we were trailing 35 - 34 against Plymouth who had just scored a touchdown and was going to try for the 2 point conversion. We all knew who was getting the ball, their full-back Demetrious Davis was the only one able to power his way to the 2 points. as soon as the play starts our defensive end Malachi Beaver and our left defensive tackle Brody Loudermilk broke through the line to lay Plymouths full-back out in the back field.

Word can't describe the joy we felt after winning that game, after all the summer workouts and twice a day workouts, and even the practice we had on Thanksgiving our dream of redemption and victory had finally been achieved.