Week 1 can often set the tone for a high school football team's season.
Three area powers showed that despite key graduation losses after last season, they will still be state title contenders as they passed major tests Friday with narrow road victories over highly regarded opponents.
Sixth-ranked Class 3A Metro Christian held on for a 14-13 win at defending Class 2A state champion Oklahoma Christian School.
Last year, OCS won 27-24 at Metro to ignite a 14-1 season that ended with a gold ball.
"It's huge to win the opener against a quality opponent," Metro coach Jared McCoy said.
The Patriots needed late defensive heroics after OCS' Thomas Qualls passed 12 yards to Kade VanMeter for a touchdown with 1:08 left to cut Metro's lead to 14-13.
OCS went for the win instead of kicking the extra point to send the game into overtime. On the 2-point conversion, Qualls scrambled and just as it appeared he was going to reach the end zone, sophomore safety Jake Koenig and senior linebacker Hayden Hillenburg combined on the tackle inches short of the goal line to preserve the win.
"Jake came out of pass coverage and hit him low and Hayden came in high to keep him out," McCoy said. "It was a big moment."
Hillenburg had 10 tackles. An offensive standout for Metro was Harrison Briggs, who caught eight passes for 108 yards.
"We've got a lot of things to fix, but we'll get better," McCoy said.
In a battle of Class A district favorites, third-ranked Kiefer rallied past No. 10 Afton 26-24. It was a much different game than Kiefer's 46-0 win in last year's opener against Afton.
Kiefer came back from a 24-12 halftime deficit.
"Afton is much improved and we got off to a horrible start. It was ugly," Kiefer coach Josh Calvert said. "As a coaching staff, at halftime we challenged our players to show what kind of heart and what kind of character does this team have."
Kiefer's winning TD came on Justin Rovang's 42-yard pass to Trystin Edwards with three minutes left.
"It was a left side fade and the ball was a little behind Trystin," Calvert said. "He turned his body all the way around to make the catch and then going back around he dove into the end zone. It was a great play. He's a stud. We were on the verge of being blown out in the first half, but he made two interceptions.
"We have a group of talented sophomores and they showed a lot in the second half. We grew up tremendously as a team. The kids showed they had a lot of fight in them."
Sixth-ranked 4A Cascia Hall, which returned only four starters, rallied to defeat rival Holland Hall 33-32 after trailing 26-14. Reece Lambert caught the winning 13-yard TD pass from Michael Bloomfield with 3:32 left.
Cascia coach Joe Medina said in August, "The kids have such a tremendous will, they are going to will themselves to a lot of victories when we might be overmatched." That was very apparent on Friday.
View slideshows from 10 area high school games
Check out more photos from local high school football games than you'll find anywhere else, and buy prints of the photos online. Here are the games that you can find from Week 1:
Cascia Hall vs. Holland Hall
Wagoner vs. Coweta
Broken Arrow vs. Owasso
Choteau vs. Warner
Glenpool vs. Berryhill
Lincoln Christian vs. Seminole
Morris vs. Checotah
Muskogee vs. Sand Springs
Oologah vs. Claremore
Stigler vs. Hilldale
tulsaworld.com/highschools
Barry Lewis
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