In the 8-man game, where depth is always an issue, one single injury can doom a team’s season.
If that were the case, the Springfield Longhorns should have packed it in after Week 5 when coach Richard Hargrove’s sideline looked more like a M*A*S*H unit than it did a football team.
Starting quarterback Cody Kirk suffered a cracked pelvis against Wiley. In the same game, Kirk’s backup Weston Moffett broke his hand. In stepped freshman Chase Humphrey.
“We could have felt sorry for ourselves,” Hargrove said.
Add to that, the Longhorns, out of the Arkansas Valley, were mired in a three-game losing streak.
“But we laced ’em up and kept on fighting,” said Hargrove, who was also missing one of his best linemen, Jarron Sharpe, whose list of dings this season includes a tear in his shoulder muscle, a dislocated knee cap and separated cartilage in his collarbone.
The Longhorns traveled to unbeaten Fowler last week and handled the Grizzlies 20-13 to advance to the Class A 8-man playoffs. Springfield will travel to Mosca in search of its first playoff victory since 1999 against a familiar foe in Sangre de Cristo.
“I thought we could get there, I just didn’t know how it was going to happen,” Hargrove said. “You just never know how kids are going to react to the sort of things we had to deal with.”
Running back Dexter McKinley has carried an offensive load impressively for the Longhorns. The junior tallied back-to-back 300-yard games against Holly and Walsh, and scored eight touchdowns in those two games.
Last week in Fowler, McKinley, behind fullback Mark Ramos, went for 168 yards, including a 42-yard touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter that propelled the Longhorns into the playoffs.
“We certainly run the ball a lot,” Hargrove said. “But Dexter gives us that little bit of speed that we haven’t had around here for a while.”
In Week 2, Springfield outlasted the Thunderbirds 44-42. Sangre de Cristo scored twice on kickoff returns and took advantage of four Springfield turnovers.
“That game, it was about 105 degrees,” Hargrove said. “This time it may be a little bit cooler.”
Jon E. Yunt can be reached at 303-954-1354 or jyunt@denverpost.com.
