The Skyline football team came into Thursday’s game losing its last three games by a combined score of – hold on, I need a calculator – 141-12. That’s allowing 47 points per game to a very good team (Dexter), a .500 team (Lincoln) and a team with one win not counting Skyline (Monroe).
The Eagles’ only win came in the first game against the Detroit University Prep Science & Math Cobras – not exactly Belleville or Saline, who Skyline plays next week.
But when the Eagles took the field on Thursday night in a perfect evening for high school football none of the above mattered in the least. As the saying goes, throw out the records when it’s Skyline vs. Pioneer and this year’s city rivalry didn’t disappoint. In fact, it was so good they had to put more time on the clock to decide a winner.
Skyline’s Johan Landis-Lewis kicked a field goal to give the home team a 30-27 lead in overtime before Pioneer answered with a touchdown run by Eduardo Cecares on the team’s second play in the OT to score a tough 33-30 victory.
The win was huge for Pioneer as the team continues to chase the postseason. They now have four wins on the season with two games left – vs. Huron (2-4) and Pinckney (2-4). Six wins guarantees a playoff spot.
The game may have not reached overtime if it was not for Hamada Alkhekani. The Pioneer senior blocked a Skyline field-goal attempt late in the game that helped guarantee OT.
The visiting Pioneers got off to a great start that took a little wind out of the Skyline crowd’s festive sails. Alkhekani received the opening kickoff, broke a tackle or two and then out ran the Eagles to the end zone to give Pioneer a 7-0 lead. Yumin Jang added the extra point and just like that the Eagles were behind.
But Skyline would even the score.
Senior Donovan Hill scored on a 13-yard TD run on a third-and-goal play that tied the game at 7-7 with 4:17 left in the first quarter.
Pioneer QB Cole Heys called his own number on a sweep to the left that went for 6 yards and a touchdown to give the visitors a 14-7 lead with 3:15 left in the first half.
Pioneer had a chance to add on it in the final seconds of the half but a field-goal attempt never got off the ground and it was 14-7 at halftime.
The Eagles opened the second half with a game-tying TD on a long pass from Hill to Noah Silkworth to square it at 14-14. A Pioneer interception then led to a Skyline field goal to give the home team a 17-14 lead.
The Pioneers then fumbled and Skyline’s Phillip Vulicevic scooped it up and ran it back for a score to give Skyline a 24-14 lead.
Pioneer scored a TD on its next play on a long pass from Heys to Aaron Medzagoh to cut the lead to 24-21 before Skyline answered with another field goal to make it 27-21.
With less than 5 minutes left in the game, a TD run by Pioneer’s Jackson Paul-McDonald tied the game at 27-27. After a penalty, the Pioneers missed the extra point that would have given them the lead.
But they ended up getting the lead – and the win – in overtime.
