The Kosciusko High School football team had just pulled within seven points at 24-17 with 5 minutes, 58 seconds to go in the fourth quarter.
When Caledonia took the ball at its own 24-yard line, everyone in the stadium knew the Cavaliers would try to run out the clock.
Except, perhaps, quarterback Daniel Wilburn and some blockers.
After seven plays moved the ball across midfield, took more than 3 minutes off the clock and forced the Whippets to call their second and third timeouts, Wilburn took the ball right, burst through a hole and started a footrace.
He doesn’t lose those often, and he didn’t lose this one, scampering 39 yards for an insurance score with 2:24 to go that gave Caledonia a 31-17 lead.
“It was a basic pull and just go and run,” Wilburn said. “We got the block for it, and I just ran it to the end zone. Got great blocks.”
The Cavaliers didn’t do anything out of the ordinary on that drive; they just executed well and had success. That’s kind of how they set a school record for wins and earned the first playoff victory in program history with that 31-24 win over the Whippets.
“We just do what we do, and if we didn’t execute, it’s on us,” Wilburn said. “We feel like we can do it as long as we do what we’re supposed to do.”
Back to work a day early
With regular-season games moved to Thursday night, perhaps coaches who wrapped up their seasons a day early would give themselves a long weekend before starting to worry about 2022.
Think again.
“All hands on deck, and tomorrow we’re getting ready to go to work,” Columbus coach Joshua Pulphus said after the Falcons lost 49-26 to West Point on Thursday night. “We’ve got to get ready to go.”
Columbus appears to be on the right track. The Falcons’ 3-4 record in a brutal region is their best since 2016, they scored the most points (152) in region games since that year and they allowed the fewest points (148) in region games since 2015. Four times the Falcons held an opponent to fewer than 10 points, and their offense started to find its groove late in the season as well.
But they have much higher aspirations.
“They’re not satisfied,” Pulphus said of his players. “They know they’re going to come back, hit the weight room real hard. We’ve got the right group of leaders coming back. They got close, they got a taste, and now they want more.”
And the Falcons don’t have to look far to see the kind of program they want to build in The Friendly City. There was one right across the field Thursday night.
“This offseason we’re going to go back and re-evaluate a lot of things,” Pulphus said. “We have a plan in place to get it going where we need to be.
“West Point is a program. We’re not trying to just win three games, four games; we’re trying to establish a program. Louisville’s a program. Noxubee’s a program. Starkville’s a program. Those programs didn’t start out at the top. People don’t remember. West Point in the early 90s was winning four games, three games, five games.”
He’s right. Between 1990 and 2001, the Green Wave went 50-80, never winning more than seven games and throwing in seasons of 3-8, 2-9 and 1-10 along the way. Since then, West Point has become a football machine, posting 13 seasons of double-digit wins and recording at least three postseason victories nine times.
Cavs living in the moment
Caledonia’s win was a historic accomplishment, and there is no way to overstate the progress Michael Kelly’s program has made.
Here is a school with 16 winning seasons and 49 losing seasons, where the last winning record was 6-5 in 2004, which at the time was the first one in 15 years.
Yet, here are the Cavaliers, sitting at 9-2 and setting a program record for points in a season with 405. The old record of 358 was set just five seasons ago; one season later Caledonia managed just 82 points in 10 games.
But Kelly says talking to the kids about history isn’t all that important. They know what they are accomplishing, and that’s enough.
“They live day to day,” he said. “They understand what we’re doing right now. We take each game by itself. We try to go 1-0 each week.
“The biggest thing we tell our kids is to prepare every day. Let’s control what we can control on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and let’s come out and see if we can succeed on Friday.”
Happily, other people are coming out on Fridays as well.
“We’ve had great crowds all year,” Kelly said. “We’ve got a great fan base, and we’ve got parents that are behind these kids 100 percent.
“I’m so proud of this community. We need them to get on the road and travel with us wherever we go next weekend. Get behind these young men and try to go 1-0 again.”
It turns out that road is 63.9 miles, the distance between Caledonia High School and Pontotoc High School. The Warriors (7-4), champions of 4A-2, advanced with a 35-34 win over Gentry in two overtimes. And if the Cavaliers are interested in another first, they have never beaten the Warriors. Pontotoc owns a 10-0 all-time record against Caledonia and has won at least two playoff games in three of the past six seasons.
The winner will get either Clarksdale or Louisville in the 4A quarterfinals.
A happy ending
The chance at the playoffs faded a week earlier, and Thursday night’s game was already lost, but Columbus football players celebrated their last touchdown Thursday night against West Point as if it put them into the state final.
It was second-and-8 when Isaiah Harris took a delayed handoff 33 yards for a touchdown with 1:23 remaining. The Falcons’ sideline erupted as Harris found the end zone.
“That whole drive we put all seniors in,” Pulphus explained. “We put one of our hardest workers in at running back, and we didn’t expect him to take it to the house.”
Although a win would have been nice, the touchdown was a fitting way to close senior night at Columbus.
“The seniors understand it’s not about them, it’s about the legacy they leave behind,” Pulphus said. “They’ve been doing a great job of coming to practice every day, showing the younger guys what they’re doing wrong.
“We’re excited about next year as well just because the young kids now know what’s expected.”
Playoff matchups
While Caledonia heads to Pontotoc for its second-round game in the 4A playoffs, five other area teams will be starting or continuing their playoff journeys Friday night.
In Class 6A, Starkville (10-1), the top seed in Region 2, will host Hernando (5-6), the No. 4 seed in Region 1. West Point (8-2), the 5A-1 champion, opens postseason play at home against Ridgeland (6-4), No. 4 in Region 2.
Noxubee County (7-3), a 24-7 winner over Booneville in its Class 3A playoff opener, will travel to Winona (10-1), which crushed Byhalia 52-0 on Friday night, for a second-round game. West Lowndes (8-2) will ride a seven-game winning streak into its 1A playoff opener at home against Richton (6-5).
Heritage Academy, a 31-12 winner over Starkville Academy in the second round of the MAIS Class 5A playoffs, has another home game as Oak Forest Academy will make the four-hour-plus trip from Amite City, Louisiana to battle the Patriots in a semifinal game. The Yellow Jackets defeated Simpson Academy 30-22 in their playoff opener.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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