“WILBY WILDCATS WIN! WILBY WILDCATS WIN! WILBY WILDCATS WIN! WILBY WILDCATS WIN! WILBY WILDCATS WIN! WILBY WILDCATS WIN! #nvlfb #cthsfb”
That excited tweet belongs to Wilby football public address announcer Bryan P. Baker, and he and every Wildcat supporter had reason to be ecstatic.
For the first time since Thanksgiving 2014, Wilby won a football game. The Wildcats ran away from the Crosby Bulldogs by a final score of 46-14 on Friday night at Ray Snyder Sr. Field. Wilby snapped a 33-game losing streak and improved to 1-3 on the season.
Dylon Alleyne-McKitty got the Wildcats on the board first with a three-yard touchdown run at the 1:58 mark of the first quarter. The extra point put Wilby up 7-0.
Crosby answered with a touchdown to make the score 7-6, but Alleyne-McKitty ran 54 yards for another score and a 13-6 advantage with 4:33 left in the first half. The Bulldogs broke off a 76-yard touchdown and hit a two-point conversion for a 14-13 lead at the 4:12 mark, only to watch the Wildcats get a 50-yard scoring pass from Kenneth Figueroa to DaShaun Wilson and take the advantage back at 19-14.
Wilby had the lead again, but the back-breaker for Crosby came on the ensuing possession. A Bulldog fumble was recovered by Wildcat Stefan Morris and run back 54 yards for a touchdown with just 20.4 seconds to play in the first half. Wilby took the 25-14 lead into halftime.
In the third quarter, the Wildcats struck for two scores in the first four minutes to put the game away. Figueroa found Ronald Rogers for a three-yard touchdown pass and a 31-14 lead with 10:03 left in the third quarter. Sean Thomas returned a punt 55 yards for another Wilby touchdown and the extra point made the score 38-14 with eight minutes to play in the quarter.
Figueroa and Wilson put the exclamation point on the Wildcat victory when they connected for a 41-yard touchdown pass with 11:48 to play in the game. A two-point conversion game Wilby the 46-14 lead it would hold the rest of the game.
Congratulations to the Wilby Wildcats on a long overdue victory, and thank you to Bryan P. Baker for the tweets about the game.
