Area football teams gave it all they had

Ironic, isn't it? After winning 50 of their past 52 football games, the contests which are the most memorable for the McCook Bison are the ones they lost.

Those two games -- among the most thrilling in Nebraska high school playoff history -- were the last-minute defeats suffered by the Bison in the 2004 and 2005 Class B state championship games.

What makes the games so vivid in our minds is the tremendous, never quit spirit of the McCook team. Despite injuries to two outstanding players in the first game of the season, the Bison found a way to capture 12 straight victories before falling to Omaha Skutt, 6-0, in the title game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday.

McCook fans, who far outnumbered the Skutt supporters, were unanimous in their pride in the Bison effort. Despite Skutt's considerable size advantage, McCook fought back from the Omaha team's opening touchdown drive to hold the Sky Hawks scoreless the rest of the way.

And, in the end, the Bison almost pulled it off, with Quarterback Tony Purvis' last second scramble stopped only two yards away from a touchdown.

Following the game, Skutt Coach Matt Turman said, "That quarterback (Purvis) is the best athlete we've seen." That's glowing praise from the coach of a team who played the best Class B teams in the state to reach the state finals.

Tony's performance was typical of the all-out effort put forth by the Bison in Class B, Chase County in Class C-1 and Cambridge in Class C-2. The three teams from Southwest Nebraska finished the year with the Number 2 rankings in the Omaha World-Herald season-ending polls.

But -- for those of us who followed the teams during the exciting 2005 season -- the Bison, Longhorns and Trojans remain Number 1 in our hearts.

They gave it their all from start to finish, making their schools and this area very proud in the process.