CALEDONIA — Nobody said making history was supposed to be easy.
After jumping out to a 17-0 lead on the first play of the second quarter, the Caledonia High School football team found itself in a battle, and the team that had never won a playoff game answered every challenge Kosciusko mounted and came out with a 31-24 victory in the opening round of the MHSAA Class 4A playoffs on Friday night.
“This is huge,” Cavaliers quarterback Daniel Wilburn said. “We’ve never really done this before, and the fact that we did it tonight and we showed how good we are, it’s great.”
The Whippets certainly found out how good Wilburn is. The junior quarterback rushed for 104 yards and three scores. Those included the first Caledonia touchdown from 15 yards to cap a lightning drive that covered 74 yards in the opening 1 minute, 53 seconds and the last Caledonia touchdown on a 39-yard burst while the Cavs were, in theory, trying to run out the clock.
And Wilburn had plenty of help, as Curtavis Johnson pounded out 83 tough yards, mostly between the tackles, and Darrius Triplett ran for 93 yards on just six carries.
The Whippets looked shell-shocked early, but once they regained their footing they were a good match for the Cavaliers. And the teams were total opposites: the Cavs gained all of their 273 yards on the ground, while the Whippets gained 241 of their 250 through the air.
The Cavaliers took advantage of short fields for their next two scores: a punt off the side of the punter’s foot started them on the Kosciusko 28 and set up a Reed Frady 34-yard field goal, and Karsten Gullette returned an Ethan Wood interception that he grabbed inside the 30 all the way to the Whippets’ 8. Four plays later, Wilburn scored from a yard out for a 17-0 lead.
It was a tale of two halves for Wood. The senior had a miserable first half, completing just 6 of 15 passes for 56 yards and getting sacked three times for 23 yards in losses.
“Those guys get after it up front,” Kelly said of his defense. “We’ve got a good group. They take pride in their craft. We felt like we could expose some things on their offensive line, and our guys got after it.”
Wood was much sharper after halftime, throwing for 185 yards and a touchdown while rushing for two scores during the second half. But he and his team were always playing from behind.
Caledonia penalties helped get the Kosciusko offense going. Wood round Jatavius Noel on a screen on third-and-14 that was stopped well short of the marker, but an unsportsmanlike conduct call on Caledonia moved the ball to the Cavs’ 15. The drive stalled there, and Will Carter put the Whippets on the board with a 31-yard field goal midway through the second quarter.
Two more big penalties helped the visitors open the second half with a 77-yard scoring drive. A defensive pass interference call that drew the ire of the Caledonia sideline and the boisterous home crowd and a personal foul penalty two players later brought the Whippets to the Cavs’ 30.
From there, it took two plays for Wood to get Kosciusko in the end zone, narrowing the margin to 17-10 on an 8-yard run.
Not only did major penalties boost the Whippets to the frustration of the Caledonia sideline, the Cavaliers also were looking for calls not made on Kosciusko receivers, who appeared to push off the entire length of some of their routes without drawing the attention of the officials.
While Kelly and his coaches had plenty to say to the referees during the game, the coach only alluded to it afterward.
“We had a few things that didn’t go our way,” Kelly said. “Our kids had to face a little adversity. Survive and advance, and we did that tonight.”
They did that by doing what they always do, and each time the Whippets threatened to get close, the Cavaliers slammed the door in their faces.
Triplett’s 40-yard run came to start a drive that began after the Cavs held the Whippets on fourth down from the Caledonia 32. Johnson’s TD run gave the Cavs an apparently comfortable 24-10 lead with 10:15 to play, but Kosciusko again pulled within seven, taking the ball at midfield and using eight plays to get into the end zone. Wood was 6 of 8 on the drive and scored on a 5-yard keeper to pull Kosciusko to within 27-20.
Again, the Cavs answered. In run-out-the-clock mode, Johnson, Wilburn and Triplett gained three first downs and shaved 3 minutes off the clock, forcing Kosciusko to call two timeouts before Wilburn busted through the right side and raced 39 yards to push the lead back to 31-17.
After the quick 17-0 lead, the need for two quality scoring drives late to put away the game probably didn’t seem likely, but the Cavaliers were ready for their moment.
“We just told ourselves, don’t get overconfident,” Wilburn said. “They’re a good team, too. But we’re the better team; we just go execute what we do.”
Kosciusko didn’t go quietly, with Wood hitting Keonte Williams for 43 yards to ignite a 58-yard scoring drive that took just 41 seconds. But with no timeouts left, once the Whippets could not execute an onside kick it was time for Wilburn to take a knee three times and start the celebration.
“Our young men have come a long way in the four years we’ve been here,” said Kelly, whose team set school records for wins (eight) and points in a season (374) Friday night. “I’m certainly proud of our football players right now. They laid it on the line, and we got the ‘W.’”
Caledonia 31, Kosciusko 24
Kosciusko (6-5) 0 3 7 14 — 24
Caledonia (8-2) 10 7 0 14 — 31
First quarter
C — Daniel Wilburn 15 run (Reed Frady kick), 10:07
C — Frady 34 FG, 4:31
Second quarter
C — Wilburn 1 run (Frady kick), 11:55
K — Will Carter 31 FG, 6:28
Third quarter
K — Ethan Wood 8 run (Carter kick), 9:55
Fourth quarter
C — Curtavis Johnson 1 run (Frady kick), 10:15
K — Wood 5 run (Carter kick), 5:58
C — Wilborn 39 run (Frady kick), 2:24
K — Jerremy Whitcomb 1 pass from Wood (Carter kick), 1:38
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