AUBREY– A perfect spiral cut through the night.
With only 1:24 left in the game, the Coppell football team trailed by three points.
Coppell junior quarterback Ishan Mair set his feet and launched the ball. Senior wide receiver Crew Davis turned, reached and snagged the pass just inside the 10-yard line before tumbling into the end zone.
For a moment, time froze. Then the horns blew.
It was the game-winner.
Coppell (6-1 overall, 4-1 District 5-6A) stormed back to defeat Denton Braswell (2-6 overall, 2-3 District 5-6A), 25-21, on Thursday night at Carrico Stadium in Aubrey.
“That was a moment,” Mair said. “It’s exciting just being in that position. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but once you’re in it, everybody feels that energy. It’s a great feeling.”
Due to sophomore quarterback Carter Zingelmann being out due to a shoulder sprain, Mair played all the offensive drives as quarterback. The win did not come easy. In fact, it was a battle from start to finish.
After a relatively slow first quarter, the Cowboys opened the scoring in the second quarter, when senior kicker Jayden Tidwell drilled a 25-yard field goal to make it 3-0 with 9:52 left.
But on the very next drive, Braswell, led by senior quarterback Brayden Mansell, quickly responded. A pair of big plays which involved a 20-yard completion to freshman running back Chris Lark and a seven-yard run by junior Zahir Trufant, flipped the lead to 7-3 with 6:32 left in the second quarter.
Minutes later, Mansell connected with Trufant again for an 18-yard rush into the end zone with 0:59 left in the first half to send the Bengals into halftime up 14-3.
“We started to find every way to lose it,” Coppell coach Antonio Wiley said. “But I’m proud of them. They found a way to come out with the win when we were doing everything we could to let it slip.”After halftime, Coppell’s energy shifted. The Coppell offense finished with 295 total yards with 180 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
The defense, anchored by senior safety Tyrell Roberson and sophomore defensive lineman Aaron Isbell, locked down.
“We started off pretty slow, but we got in the locker room, regrouped and came out stronger,” Isbell said. “We only let up seven points in the second half, so that was big for us.”
Momentum swung fully in Coppell’s favor when senior running back Dylan McAfee exploded through the Braswell defensive line for an 80-yard touchdown, then sophomore Jacob Anene hauled in the two-point conversion to cut the deficit to 14-11 with 0:16 left in the third quarter. The game had roared back to life.
But Braswell wasn’t done. With just over five minutes left, Trufant darted 42 yards through Coppell’s defense to push the Bengals ahead, 21-18.
Still, Mair, stacking up 115 passing yards and two touchdown passes, and Davis with two touchdown catches refused to back down.
On the final drive, Mair scrambled 19 yards to move the chains before delivering the 33-yard strike to Davis for the game-winner with 1:24 remaining in the game.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Wiley said. “We’ve got to do a better job maintaining our standard. But we’re finding ways to win, and that’s what good football teams do.”
As Coppell comes off of Thursday night’s game, it prepares to face Flower Mound next week at Buddy Echols Field.
“We’ve got a lot to work on,” Isbell said. “But we’ll be ready for Flower Mound next week.”
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