All photos by Stephen Dachman.

It’s felt like the longest season of Moore League football, ever. Since Week 1, the games have seemed to just drag on and on, with clocks slowly ticking away and fans fighting to stay awake. We’ve still got one week left in the regular season and I feel like I’ve watched six months worth of games.

It’s not that they’re boring. It’s that most of them have been decided by halftime. And completely out of reach by the end of the third quarter. The annually-hyped Poly/Lakewood game had its moments, but it too slowed to a crawl when it became clear we had a winner.

That’s all well and good – it simply means we have some teams that are better than others, and they’re taking care of business when they need to. You can’t fault a squad for performing their best and dominating a game from start to finish. But there’s been no drama, no romance, no sick-to-your-gut queasiness that the next snap means the difference between glory and heartbreak.

We got it on Friday night.

We got the drama, and a whole lot more.

One head coach called it, “Crazy.” The other, simply, “Wow.”

They were both right.

It had everything. Deep balls. Electric runs. Two point conversions. Onside kicks. Pressure blitzes and scrambling quarterbacks. Bruising backs and juking speedsters. Surgical offense and tactical defense. A last second, fourth down Hail Mary. An unthinkable comeback.

In the end, the Jordan Panthers overcame a 31-6 halftime deficit to score 46 points in the second half, and held off a furious rally by the home Wilson Bruins and their own beloved former head coach, now-Wilson defensive coordinator Scott Meyer, to escape with the improbable 52-44 victory that ended with Jordan head coach Thomas Barnes receiving a Gatorade bath in a gladiator contest that will go down not only as the best game of the season, but certainly the best Moore League football game in years.

It was the kind of game that inspires, that reminds us why we even care about football in the first place. It was exactly what a drab Moore League season needed. It was imperfect only in that one team had to lose.

Head coach Mario Morales grinned and bounced as he paced on the Wilson sideline, just seconds after senior receiver Garion Manning scored the first of his four touchdowns on a 75-yard screen pass in the first quarter.

“Let’s start a flurry now!” Morales yelled.

And they did. Manning scored again 18 seconds later, then it was junior Walter Cook less than three minutes later, and Manning one more time to make it a 28-0 Wilson lead. At the end of the first quarter, quarterback Brett Wilson had thrown four touchdowns. By halftime, the lead was 31-6.

“Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” said Barnes.

But Jordan had a flurry of their own.

Jordan touchdown, two-point conversion. Onside kick. Jordan touchdown, two-point conversion.

All of a sudden, we stand at 31-22.

Wilson touchdown, 38-22. Jordan touchdown, 38-30. Jordan touchdown, 38-38.

With 7:01 left in the game, Wilson and Harper take over on their own twenty-yard line. In the first half, they’d attacked the deep middle of the field relentlessly and had their way with the Jordan secondary. In the second half, the Jordan rush forced Harper out of the pocket time and time again. This is where he’s normally very comfortable. But there was nothing normal about Friday night.

Harper scrambled and threw to a sideline check-down receiver, where Jordan lineman Fiamatai Togiaso was waiting to intercept the pass and rumble 25 yards into the end zone for an amazing, inspiring, an impossible lead. Head coach Barnes leapt so high into the air that he should have been ruled a successful extra point. Instead, the Panthers converted their fifth successful two-point conversion of the half for a 46-38 lead.

Wilson ball. Jordan recovers a fumble. Wilson intercepts a pass.

Should the Panthers have probably run the clock by handing the ball off in that situation? Sure. But what fun would that be?

Wilson drove down to the 3-yard line, where a Harper sneak was stuffed before Bettis-like back Keith White smashed over the goal line for a crucial touchdown. Harper’s two-point conversion pass, though, fell incomplete and Jordan clung to a 46-44 lead with 3:52 remaining.

Jordan punt. Wilson interception. Jordan touchdown, but two-point conversion luck runs out. 52-44, Panthers.

One last chance for the Bruins. Manning, to cap off a consistently electrifying performance, returns the kickoff all the way back to the Jordan 37-yard line and puts his team in prime position to keep this insanity going. Wilson needs a touchdown with under one minute to go.

Two false start penalties and three plays later, Wilson faces fourth down and eight yards to go with just 20 ticks. Harper in the shotgun. Looks middle. Pressured. Flushed right. Looking downfield. Nothing. Defense closing. Looks right. Throws. Open receiver. Corner of the endzone.

The entire Jordan sideline, paralyzed in fear. The entire Wilson sideline, gushing with excitement.

It would have been a difficult catch. The ball was a little short, the receiver a little too deep. It bounced off waiting fingertips, fell harmlessly. Harmfully. Turnover on downs.

Game over.

“Obviously, for our kids it was really emotional,” said Morales, who had just finished consoling players who left tears on the field. “They just started making plays, next thing you know we’re fighting just to stay in the game. With all that happening, we thought we still had a chance to win or tie.”

Even in exhaustion, there was evident pride in Morales.

“We never quit, we never gave up. I really think our guys played hard until the very end, and the look in their eyes was, ‘We’re going to get this ball, score, send it into overtime and win this game.’”

Barnes was similarly exhausted, but reveled in the victory as his players somehow found energy to bump chests and shout their leader’s praises.

“We’ve had some exciting games this year, to say the least,” he said. “But this is special because it means we’re in the playoffs.”

This was a game for third place in the Moore League standings. It was a game to jockey for playoff spots, and of course, for pride. This game took a toll on the joints and ligaments, on the green field and the white pants – both of them turned brown – and certainly on the emotions. And years from now, the players may not remember their final season record or playoff seed, but they’ll remember this game and how they played, some with jubilance and some with sorrow. But they can share in the pride. They should be proud to have been a part of this game.

I am proud to have watched it.