Will Long leads Edmond Santa Fe to win over Norman North
Edmond Santa Fe 24, Norman North 7

By Justin Harper, Staff Writer Comments 0
Published: October 31, 2009

NORMAN — Edmond Santa Fe is finally seeing its struggles become success. Norman North is experiencing just the opposite.

Santa Fe defeated North 24-7 Friday, playing anything like a football team that entered with a single victory and knocking the T-Wolves, once ranked fourth in Class 6A, out of the playoff picture in the process.

"We felt the whole year we were better than 1-7,” said Santa Fe quarterback Will Long. "I think we progressed through the year, but the team that played on the field tonight is the same team we’ve had all season. We just didn’t finish games early on.”

Thanks to a terrific showing by Long, the Wolves finished this one. The team had lost five games by a combined 21 points. But it didn’t allow this to become another close call. After Norman North drew within 14-7, the Wolves scored 10 points in a 2-minute, 19-second span to close the door.

The most impressive thing about the victory was how it came about. Santa Fe is first and foremost a running team, as witnessed by the fact that sterling running back Brian Mills came into Friday’s contest with 830 yards rushing — just 46 less yards than the team’s season passing total.

Nevertheless, with Norman North stuffing the run and holding Mills to 59 yards on 24 carries and the team to 102 yards on 38 totes, Long put the ball in the air to great success. The senior completed 10 of 15 passes for 170 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for 27 yards.

And Long was the difference. Because Norman North had the exact same problem running the ball against the Wolves’ defense (38 carries for 100 yards), but the T-Wolves’ managed just 41 yards passing and tossed a trio of picks.

"They were loading the box, so we knew we would hit some passes,” said Long, who connected with leading receiver Matt Leavell (27 catches) for a 70-yarder in the third quarter and Patrick Hinton for 20 yards to open the scoring in the second.

Long came in completing 39 percent of his passes and seven TDs to 12 interceptions. Friday, he hit 67 percent and had two scoring tosses and no give-aways.

"It took time to build confidence in our passing game,” said Mills. "But the confidence was there. That’s why the success was there tonight. Because of that confidence that we can throw the ball.”

The fact the Norman North couldn’t was its downfall. An offense that came in averaging 33 points per game came up 26 points shy of that. The T-Wolves’ season, which began so promising with four consecutive wins, has now seen four straight defeats. And with this one putting their District 6A-1 record at 2-4, postseason hopes were vanquished.

Nick Canavan, whose gutty effort was apparent on defense and offense and even on a kick return, ran for 51 yards on seven carries and scored North’s lone touchdown.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe, now 2-7 and 1-5, looks to close the year with a second straight triumph, against winless Moore, and do away with the label "Best one-win team in 6A.”

"We’re expecting to finish with three,” said Mills. "That’s not what we hoped for, but it’s a lot better than one. We’ve always been a solid team. We lost a lot of games on a couple of chance plays. Tonight, we didn’t allow that to happen.”