BY NOLAN RUTH
X – @RealNolanRuth
WILLOW PARK— It has been a while since the football team at Trinity Christian Academy in Willow Park has been relevant in the state. After the school was rocked by a scandal, everything about the institution had to start over from scratch. Under the leadership of head coach Cody McKenzie, the Eagles have slowly started climbing back. Their progress was on display on Friday night in a hard fought battle with Fort Worth Lake Country Christian.
It was a defensive battle and Willow Park looked like it was going to be able to put it away, but a late turnover allowed Lake Country to score the winning touchdown with just over a minute to go for a final score of 20-14.
“If you go back a couple of years ago we were looking at 17 or 18 kids in the program,” McKenzie said after the game. “We’ve battled through some tough seasons. The win/loss record doesn’t look a whole lot different, but the performance on the field, being in the games in the fourth quarter, being close to finishing it, I couldn’t be more thankful for the effort, the toughness and the resiliency of these guys for the last few years.”
Willow Park got off to a great start. The Eagles received the opening kickoff and proceeded to take the opening drive 79 yards on seven plays capped off with an 18 yard pass from Cannan Kaznowski to Braxton Lewis. After Lake Country jumped offsides on the PAT, McKenzie decided to go for two, and Kaznowski walked in for the conversion to make it 8-0 early.
Kaznowski was the biggest spark for the Eagles in the game, completing five of 10 for 86 yards and a score, and adding a total of 24 yards on 15 carries.
Lake Country was quick to respond on the ensuing drive. After a long run by Jaxon Bohlin, quarterback Timothy Wright rolled out and threw to a wide open Ryan Whites who snuck behind the defense for the score. However, the two point conversion was unsuccessful and Willow Park still held the lead at 8-6.
From that point it became a defensive struggle. Lake Country was twice turned away on fourth down, and Willow Park was forced to punt on its next three drives. However, just before halftime, Lake Country found paydirt again. Once again facing fourth down, Wright sat in the pocket and threw a short out route to his tight end Everett Pitts who turned up field and ran 26 yards for the touchdown. Lake Country led 13-8 at the half.
The third quarter was silent on the scoreboard. Willow Park appeared to be on a good drive early, but threw an interception. Inexplicably, Lake Country faced fourth down at its own ten yard line and opted to go for it. They were unsuccessful, and Willow Park took over at the 11 yard line. Unfortunately for the Eagles, two penalties pushed them back and prevented any progress. The drive ultimately ended with a missed field goal.
In the fourth quarter, Lake Country held the ball for a long time to kill as much clock as possible. After finally being forced to punt, Willow Park got a big play from Owen Coates who took the handoff up the middle and outran the defense for a 90 yard touchdown. The Eagles could not convert on the two-point conversion, so they only held a one point lead at 14-13.
Lake Country drove down the field with urgency, but Micah Harless came up with a big defensive play that resulted in a fumble and the Eagles took over. With Lake Country burning timeouts, all Willow Park had to do was pick up a first down and they would be able to run out the clock. Unfortunately, they fumbled the ball away on third down and gave Lake Country one last chance.
All it took was one play for Wright to throw one up for Whites who made a very contested catch in the endzone to give Lake Country the lead 20-14. The ensuing kickoff took a weird hop and Lake Country recovered, ultimately allowing them to run out the clock and prevent Willow Park from finally getting that elusive district win.
Willow Park (2-7, 0-3) will get a bye week next week before finishing their season at home against Lubbock Christian (7-1, 2-0), while Lake Country (4-4, 2-1) returns home next week to take on highly touted Colleyville Covenant (4-4, 1-1).
