Ten Years, Ten Best Games - #1: Dallas Skyline, 2009

Well, here it is... the greatest game of the first decade of Cy Woods football.

November 28, 2009: Cy Woods 28, Dallas Skyline 21

After outlasting Westfield in the area round of the 2009 Class 5A, Division I playoffs, the Cypress Woods Wildcats advanced to the Region II semifinals against the very team that ended their season in this very round last year, the Skyline Raiders. This game took place in Temple.

Skyline rolled out a lineup of major-college talent on both sides of the ball. Mike Davis, a wide receiver, was bound for Texas. Corey Nelson, a linebacker, was heading to Oklahoma. Paul Dawson, who was a junior that year, ended up going to TCU; he became a linebacker and played a couple of seasons for the Bengals. Tony Drake, the starting running back, had some interest from Michigan and Texas Tech before he decided to sign with Colorado State. Adrian Lee, a starting safety, signed with Cal. Javia Hall, their starting quarterback, was headed to UTEP and had not thrown an interception all season heading into this game. There were at least a couple more guys who signed with Division I programs but for brevity's sake, I will move on.

No doubt that they were the best collection of talent we faced that year. I said earlier that Jermicheal Selders might have been the best individual player that we went up against in 2009, but the Raiders had infinitely more star power in their lineup than Cy Creek did.

Skyline came into this contest ranked #2 in the state in Class 5A. The Raiders entered 2009 as a potential state title contender and up to this point, they had lived up to that billing. After strolling through their regular-season schedule and the bi-district round, they got a scare in the second round against DeSoto before ultimately prevailing 41-36.

Like the Klein Oak game in week two, no one really gave us a realistic shot of winning this game, much less making this game competitive. Maybe the DeSoto game revealed some of Skyline's vulnerabilities, but again, nobody gave us a chance.

Unfortunately, this game is too far back in the archive to pull up some of the comments that were made in the lead-up to this game, so there won't be any old takes that will be exposed. Also, I think there's some kind of statute of limitations in play. With that being said, I did remember a thread on the old 5ATexasFootball.com board that was titled "We're choppin' wood... Cypress Wood!" It was created by a Skyline fan who essentially believed that the Raiders would win in a walkover.

Hahaha.

Colton Huntsman opened the scoring in the first quarter with a touchdown run, but Skyline hit back with a couple of scores of their own to take a one-touchdown lead into halftime. The score remained 14-7 heading into the final quarter until Bryce Callahan snagged a bomb from Colton to tie the game. The deadlock remained until the Raiders regained the lead, which set the stage for a thriller.

Hall threw a ten-yard touchdown to Davis with 2:54 left in the game. It wouldn't take long for the Cats to respond because they went into their bag of tricks. Fred Anderson found a wide-open Patrick LaFleur to tie the game with 1:44 to go. On the ensuing defensive series, Hall's pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and Dylan Thompson was the quickest to react to the ball in the air and his interception gave Woods the chance to get the lead... which they did when Isaiah Battle scored on a 44-yard touchdown catch with thirty seconds remaining. Bryce sealed the victory when he picked off Hall with about twenty seconds left.

On that Thanksgiving weekend, Cy Woods was the hot topic in Texas High School Football. We had upset the #2 team in the state of Texas. We defeated a team of legitimate Division I players. With this victory, we made it further than the first senior class at Cypress Woods High School.

Obviously, the following week's game against Stony Point was a massive crash. But, we're not talking about that.

With that, this series chronicling the ten best games from the first ten years of Cypress Woods Wildcats football is complete. Let's hope that the second decade produces more memorable moments like these ten games.