JOURNAL STAFF
FARMERVILLE – Airline reserves a sliver of practice time to fiddle around with trick plays on special teams, and the Vikings reached into that bag to pull out a 48-44 win at Union Parish Friday night.
The Fightin’ Farmers stormed to a late 44-41 advantage in a game where the lead changed hands repeatedly, leaving the Vikings with 1:35 left to find one more answer.
That answer came in the form of a trick kickoff return where Kenny Darby handed off to Tre Jackson, who took it to the house.
“We always fool around with it, and I’m glad they kept doing it (in practice),” joked Airline coach Justin Scogin.
After experiencing one huge momentum swing in the first week of the season when the Vikings (2-0) scored 39 straight points in a comeback against North DeSoto, the momentum pendulum wildly gyrated between Airline and Union Parish (1-1).
Faced with a lengthy road trip through the hilly forests of north Louisiana and a hostile environment of Class 3A power Union Parish, Airline jumped out quickly by scoring the first 13 points.
The Farmers responded with 16 unanswered points, taking a 16-13 edge into halftime.
“We handled everything like the trip and the environment pretty well, and we started in the right direction,” Scogin said. “A couple of funny things happened, and we lost confidence in the second quarter.
“We regained it after halftime, especially offensively. Union Parish did things defensively they hadn’t shown, and they did a good job on offense, too. It kind of snowballed until the very end, and our guys stepped up and made plays.”
The Vikings roared back, scoring the first two touchdowns of the third quarter to build a 27-16 lead.
The teams traded blows throughout the second half with the Airline lead wavering between three points and 11 points, the latter when the Vikings constructed a 41-30 edge in the fourth quarter.
But Union Parish again responded, scoring two touchdowns to snatch a 44-41 edge.
Jackson’s kickoff return for a touchdown and an ensuing defensive stand ended a second straight wild win for Airline.
“We’ve preached (mental toughness) all offseason, and I’m happy that it’s showing up,” Scogin said. “But we’re making things harder than we need to because we need to basic things on offense, defense and special teams better.
“If we can combine all of that into a complete game from start to finish, I think we can be very good.”
Scogin said the offense had early success running the football, but the bulk of the offense still rested on the arm of quarterback Ben Taylor.
Airline picked up the Farmers’ relentless blitz relatively well, giving Taylor time to find open receivers.
But perhaps the most impressive thing Scogin saw Friday night was the way his players picked each other up in adverse situations.
“We’re very selfless on offense and defense, and they enjoy playing with each other,” Scogin said. “It was impressive the way our offensive guys were out there encouraging our defense.
“Union Parish was pushing us around a little bit, but we made plays when we really needed to.”