From the perspective of head coach Tye Hiatt by Jose Montoya

In my 13 years of coaching I have never experienced a week like this, but the story doesn’t begin on October 30th…

It actually starts in April 2021 when I got into my office for the first time. The room was empty except for a piece of paper that emphasized the importance of the Wagon Wheel Game. Essentially, it said that a team could finish the season with one win – the one that mattered the most was against a team from Canyon, Texas.

That takes me back to October 16, 2021. A 44-24 loss in that very game…

Watching the other team rush toward the hill as the clock hit 0:00 was gut-wrenching. I never want to experience what I felt at that moment.

I’ve been apart of many playoff/championship games in my life, but there is truly nothing like it when ENMU and WT square off.

Saturday night’s game was quite noteworthy as it was Eastern’s first trip to Bain-Schaeffer Buffalo Stadium. A stadium built in 2019 capable of seating 8,500. And that doesn’t even consider the student section seated directly behind the visitor’s bench. Honestly, this environment is hands down the best place we played this year – even better than our trip to DI Tarleton State.

Now, why was this such a crazy week? Well, it began directly after a one possession loss to UTPB. A game we led during the final quarter and should have won.

Honestly, the boys had a great first four days preparing for the Wagon Wheel Game. A tradition in our program is that the seniors get a chance to talk to our team about the game. We have a special group of seniors and I want to thank David, Aseli, Rapi, and Kevin for your leadership this week.

The craziness really got started Wednesday night as Portales experienced a water outage. As you can imagine, it’s important to have access to water and we needed to adjust our practice and travel plans for the next three days.

Thursday afternoon we practiced on a grass field at the high school and Friday evening we hit the road to stay overnight in Amarillo. Typically, we would drive the day of, but with the uncertainty of the outage we decided to have the team stay in a hotel the night before the game.

Just when we thought all was nice and dandy – a new problem arose. As we got on our way to Canyon for our walkthrough Saturday morning, one of the buses broke down.

Now, it could have been easy for the boys to begin complaining and poking blame on others. Instead, they took the initiative and moved our equipment from the broken bus to the other one. From there, our travel party crammed into the charter and got to the stadium in one piece.

On our way back to the hotel the same thing happened and we needed to squish our team on the working bus. Long story short, I am proud of how the team responded to this situation and how they did not let an unfortunate circumstance affect them.

It took a lot, but we finally made it to Saturday night. The game that matters the most. The game that every Greyhound remembers.

Beforehand I told the team that they needed to accomplish these three things to win.

Stay true to ourselves, win the turnover battle, and charge the hill.

In our game against UTPB a week prior we let the game get to ourselves. We did not play a full 60 minutes and lost a chance for a win by allowing our emotions to hurt us.

It may seem obvious, but forcing turnovers helps you win games. Every time that we have won, we’ve won the turnover battle. I wanted our boys to be hungry and be playmakers.

The last point does not need an explanation. If our boys carried those words with them, they would accomplish the goal in getting to charge the hill.

In the first quarter I gained some confidence. It didn’t come from holding WT scoreless in the period or from our offense making big plays. Instead, it came when the Buffalos converted a fourth down on a fake punt.

To me, when West Texas A&M did that it told me that they think that in order to win this game, they will need to run trick plays.

We went on to score the first points of the ball game, but WT led 7-3 at the break.

Although I was not in the locker room at the moment, I have had other coaches let me know about one of our team members gathering the team while they were anxiously waiting to get back on the field. That was truly special to hear and I am proud that this team has a leader like him.

Early in the frame we had a 14-3 deficit. At this point, it could have been easy to give up and call it a day, but the boys did not let that happen. Instead, they responded on the following drive. It ended up being a 14-play, 80-yard drive taking 7:51 to complete culminating in Kiante Stoker’s first career touchdown.

I was really impressed with his composure and willingness to do his job on Saturday. He led our rushing attack and made it difficult for WT to tackle him.

The next big play came on West Texas A&M’s next possession. After forcing a 3 & out, Aseli Finau blocked a punt attempt and gave ENMU favorable field position to score a touchdown on an eight-play drive to earn the 17-14 advantage. That score was Asa Wondeh’s sixth of the season (2nd best in LSC).

After gaining the lead, we got our second interception of the night from Zerrian Meander. He forced a key turnover to give us the ball with 12:17 remaining.

The next nine minutes saw our two squads trade possessions until WT had a 68-yard scoring drive to take the lead with 1:39 remaining in the game.

In these moments it is easy to crumble. In these moments it is easy to just give up. But, our team did not. Scanning the entire sideline, I saw a team of players that believed they were going to win that game.

Every single week we practice our two-minute drill. We mix it up with short yardage and chunk plays.

The initial goal for a two-minute drill is not scoring. It’s actually getting the first first-down

We opened the drive at the 25-yard line. Our first target went to Tyree Cherry who dropped the pass. The second target was slightly overthrown above the head of Asa Wondeh. Now we faced a 3rd & 10.

Kason Martin made a precise throw to get exactly ten yards to Wondeh on a curl route. We did it. We got the first down.

The two connected for a nine-yard gain on the next play. After an incomplete pass broken up by WT’s secondary, we decided to run the ball. We figured the defense would think pass because of the time on the clock and situation. Isaiah Tate got us the first down and more with a seven-yard gain.

The next pass was caught out-of-bounds by Wondeh so now we faced 2nd & 10. Martin successfully hit Wondeh near the Buffs’ sideline and he turned around, broke a tackle, and got us another first down at the 37-yard line. That catch was No. 15 on the night for the junior wideout as he tied the record for single receptions in a game set last season by Justin Manyweather.

Despite the nice play, Wondeh’s left glove came off after the play and he signaled for a substitution. Brenden Strickland went to the far sideline from my vantage point, while Cherry stood at the near sideline as I explained the play call to Martin.

The play we went with was something we ran during preseason, but never executed on the field.

We had Cherry, Greg Thomas, and Bryzai White on one side with Brenden Strickland on a solo route.

The idea was to have a double move for Cherry and to send him vertical. At that point we knew he would be open. The worry was if we would have enough protection to create that open space.

Martin snapped the ball from shotgun formation with a running back to block. As the pressure was coming, he stepped up and sent a high-flying ball to the back corner of the endzone.

That ball spent an eternity in the air and found the outstretched arms of Cherry for the game-winning score. I made sure to look back for any penalty flags and saw none. We scored and now we needed to defend for the next 14 seconds.

As Kevin McCracken tackled the WT player with zero seconds remaining the team and I finally got to do something Eastern hasn’t done since 2018.

We charged the hill.

Yes. Even I ran to the hill and celebrated with our boys.

ENMU will always be the school that won the Wagon Wheel for the first time at West Texas A&M’s new stadium.

I am proud of our team. They worked really hard this week and they showed that they wanted it more than the other team.

This game is truly unlike any other that I have coached in.

I also want to thank family, friends, alumni, and our Portales community.

The Wheel is not just for us – it is for all of us because we are ALL IN.