Fourth quarter foils Indians' upset bid

The Comanche Indians came within a quarter of pulling off one of the biggest upsets of Week 9 in the state. It is was not meant to be as visiting Community Christian scored 28 unanswered points to take home a 39-21 victory on Senior Night in Comanche on Nov. 1.

Comanche led 13-11 at halftime and 21-11 midway through the third quarter before a huge momentum swing propelled the Royals to the win.

“(That fourth quarter) kind of hurt, but I’m proud of these guys,” said Gary Robinson, head coach. “The thing with this program that we talked about all weekend as coaches is that if we can get these kids to play that hard every week we’ll start winning more ball games. We’re undersized and we go out against guys way bigger, but if we play that hard with that intensity, emotion and energy, we can win more games.”

According to the coach, the key is to get them to learn to do that week in and week out.

“I think we could have easily won that football game,” Robinson said. “We let it slip in the fourth quarter. We got some calls that didn’t go our way. The (interception in the end zone) you can see it on the tape, was not an interception. Those types of things happen in every game. Some things don’t go your way and we let it slip away. But, if we keep playing like that, we’re going to get more wins.”

There were some bright spots for the Indians. Community Christian scored the first 11 points of the game before Comanche got a boost from its special teams. A Comanche punt was not fielded cleanly by the Royals’ return man. The ball hit the player, bounced high off the ground and Comanche’s Kruz Lile caught the ball off the hop in full stride and he easily ran the final 25 yards for the touchdown.

“He was really hustling down the field,” Robinson said. “He had been running hard to make a tackle and it happened because he ran hard and got the bounce. If he’s not hustling he doesn’t get it. When you play hard and do things hard you get better luck.”

The touchdown gave the Indians the boost they needed in the second quarter. 

Later in the quarter, Colby Shannon picked off the Community Christian quarterback and returned it to the Royals’ 27. Three plays later, Shannon threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Rylan White leading to a 13-11 halftime lead for Comanche.

Comanche drove 60 yards on its first possession of the third quarter with Shannon running the ball in from a yard out to push the lead to 21-11.

Community Christian would then seize the momentum and never give it up. On the Royals’ next possession quarterback Judah Heltzman kept the ball on an option around left end and outran the Comanche defense for a 75-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 21-18.

It would be the spark the Royals needed as they would score three fourth-quarter touchdowns to seal the win and possibly a spot in the state playoffs.

Comanche (2-7 overall, 1-7 district) is out of playoff contention. The Indians will travel to play unbeaten Holdenville this Friday in their season finale.