The Game
Scored tied at 54-54, Presque Isle has the ball on their 20 yard line. While war at this timeout, let’s talk about these two teams. We’ll start with Portland Prep. Well this is a storied program, 17 state championships, and not to mention the one national title from the team back in ’98.
They’re good, but they’ve lost a lot of talent since they’re team from last year. They’ve even lost one game this season. It was to out-of-state opponent Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. This Portland team has a few decent players but none of them over a two-star recruit. Vermont, New Hampshire, Stony Brook, smaller schools and Division II schools are coming after these kids. Now, let’s move on to this Presque Isle team. They’ve got two who can play. The wide receiver Matthew Baker, who’s a decent player, one-star recruit on U.S.A. Today and two-star on ESPN, who’s going to the University of Buffalo. A decent sized kid, just under 6 foot and weighing in at just under 200 lbs.
Now let’s move on to their big player, the quarterback, Jack Travers. He’s the big giant tall kid, 6’ 7” tall, maybe pushing 6’ 8”. He was just 6’2” last year as a junior; he grew 5 inches since last January. His arm strength was fine last year, but it has massively improved. During the summer he got lessons and was able to do some drills with current New England quarterback, Tom Brady. Tom actually said that his arm is better than his, and his running ability is uncanny. Travers runs a 4.8 second 40 yard dash. At his height and weight, that’s phenomenal! He’s yet to commit, but he has narrowed his choices to 5 colleges, Boston College, Michigan, Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee. And all of them are offering him scholarships. He did tell the press that he will commit at the Under Amour Game in February.
Let’s get back to the game. Score tied at 54, 1 minute left in the game. Travers in the shotgun, calling the cadence. McKinney motions to the left and the ball snaps. Travers drops back, standing tall. He throws a pass across the middle! But it was too high. 2nd and 10, Presque is going to go to a no huddle offense. Travers awaits the signal call. He walks back up and gives the signal. He moves back under center, and gets the ball pretty quickly. He pitches the ball to Brown on a sweep to the right. Oh, he’s not going anywhere… but what’s this! He chucks the ball across the field and Travers is standing wide open! He catches it and turns to run! He’s moving down the field! He runs for what seemed like forever before being tackled out of bounds by the weak side corner chasing him down from behind. Presque now has the ball on the Portland 40 yard line.
We go back to the no huddle and Travers calls another signal as he sits back in the shotgun. He gets the ball off the snap, and drops three steps back in the pocket. He throws a quick pass to the middle to Baker, who else? He breaks one tackle before being brought down by a swarm of Portland players. Now a running clock at just over 20 seconds, Presque has no timeouts. 2nd and 2 to go, 18 seconds and ticking. Travers gets the ball in the shotgun but what’s this! He takes off straight up the gut. He gets through and out quick’s the linebackers! The strong safety lunges at his legs… but Travers hurdles over him! He takes off to the 20, the 10! He gets run down from behind, he’s still going! 5! Now a whole posse is hanging on to him. He’s driving! And falls into the end zone! Touchdown Presque! And with only 6 seconds left. The entire team dog piles on Travers as they celebrate the impossible touchdown. They jog off the field as the PAT team comes out to give them the 7 point lead. He kicks and splits the uprights, the score 61-54.
And here we go the kickoff team. They line up as the kicker takes his mark. Her runs up and squibs the ball right up the middle. It hits a Portland player and that starts the clock. A Portland player picks up the ball and starts his run. The clock strikes zero as the player breaks a tackle before being brought down by two Presque players.
It’s over! Presque Isle wins! First ever appearance in the state tournament, they pull off the win in the state title game. And now we crown the MVP, Jack Travers. Racking up over 400 yards passing, rushing for 95 yards, and a grand total of 5 touchdowns. Presque will be celebrating late tonight! Final score Presque Isle: 61, Portland Prep: 54. This has been a broadcast of the Maine Class 2A state championship.
The Locker Room
Sounds can be heard as the silent locker room becomes louder and louder.
“Can I get a who-rah?”
“Who-Rah!”
“You know!”
“What’s up!”
“What’s up!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Vikings on three! 1… 2… 3!”
“Vikings!”
The locker room becomes a bustling and loud room as the players celebrate. Jack Travers is toward the front with the starters. Fired up, they were shoving each other around.
“Yeah!” Brown yelled.
“I can’t believe we did it! This is awesome! AAAAAH!” Travers yelled.
“Let me tell you something, it’s cold as hell! I thought I was going to freeze!” Baker complained.
“What! You were playing the entire game! How are you cold?” Travers yelled back at him, obviously making fun of him.
“Two reasons! One, it’s -5 outside! And two, I’m from Georgia. I’m not used to the cold.”
“No! It’s cause you’re a pussy!” Brown razzes him a bit.
“Shut up, bitch!” he yelled back.
“Please. Gentleman, may I make a suggestion. Slap my ass!” Travers joked around.
Baker pushes away from Travers, “You a gay ass motherfucker!”
They all laugh as they proceed to removing all their pads and football gear before putting something on more comfortable. Basketball shorts with a regular t-shirt and then slides a sweatshirt over the top. Travers grabs the trophy, making sure not to break it on accident. He carries it to the yellow school bus and sets it gently on the seat next his coach. He moves toward the back of the bus and slings his bag over the back seat. He sits down and then stretches across the bus over to the next seat. Tonight, he was going to have two seats on the bus ride back home. The first hour and a half, no one could sleep. Everyone was too fired up. By the time we had gotten past Bangor, most of the kids were already asleep.
Jack was in the back dosing away before he starts to have an unusual dream. The dream starts off in a blur as he hears a voice. It was obviously a boy’s voice, it sounded like it was distress. It was followed by a silence then by a sweet sarcastic woman’s voice. The voice got louder and louder before it finally silenced. It blurted out something that was inaudible. Jack starts to lose consciousness in his dream before he is woken up by a sudden jolt of the bus.
He leans up and wipes his hand across his face. He looks outside to find that almost the entire town of Presque Isle were out in the streets holding up homemade signs that said miscellaneous stuff such as, “Go Vikings!, Great Job!, State Champs!, etc.”
Through the bus window and road noise that is common in most school buses, he could hear the faint cheering and applause of the crowd. The crowd seemed to go on all the way to the school, mostly in a single layered line that spaced out in some parts of the town. But the people got denser as they approached the school. They pull up to the school and around the back to the stadium. And to the teams utter disbelief, that entire itty bitty stadium was filled to the brim to cheering fans as they welcomed back their new state champion sons back. They pull up to the front gate and start to unload the buses. Jack moves to the front of the bus as everyone files out one-by-one. The coach hands him the trophy personally and asks him to take it out.
Jack agrees, and as he exits the bus. He holds the large trophy up high into the air. The crowd goes nuts as he runs onto the field straight to the 50-yard marker. He’s then surrounded by a swarm of his own players as the jump up and down and celebrate.
As they were celebrating, something caught Jack’s eye. He looks up into the sky to find what looks like a horse flying through the air. He watches intently as it soars overhead and appears to land just behind the visiting stands on the other side of the field. He thinks to himself and decides to go and check it out. He hands the trophy to Baker and makes his way through the small crowd of about 40 kids. He jogs across the field and moves around the visiting bleachers.
He moves to a slow and swaying stance as he moves with complete silence. ‘What was that?’ he wondered to himself.
Just as he said that, something caused him to just freeze. He couldn’t move, no matter how much he struggled. He couldn’t break free from the mysterious hold. He tried to yell for help, but what came out was just a little whelp. He stands there in complete silence as something moves in the shadows. The object moves forward and comes straight toward him. It was a horse! One with wings and a horn! ‘How’s that possible!?’ He yelled in his head. Every vein in his body wanting to just unleash its torrent.
“It is only possible if you truly believe. And with a little bit of magic, that can’t hurt either.” The horse said.
Jack’s eyes widen with fear as he strains with all his might to try to break free. The winged and horned horse moves closer to him.
“There is somepony that is in need of love. She won’t survive much longer without somepony in her life. And I’m choosing you.”
‘Somepony?’ Jack thinks in his head as the horse moves and lowers his horn to touch Jack’s forehead.
Beams of light shoot out everywhere as Jack is slowly overtaken with a white aura. He begins to lose consciousness as the aura moves from his feet up to his torso and head. Just as the aura reaches his head, Jack loses consciousness completely and goes limp. The magic holding him vanishes and he starts to fall to the ground like a wet noodle. Just before his head collides with the hard pavement, a bright white flash that would blind anyone without proper eye protection explodes, and he disappears completely.