Commentary: No one won in Alpine

When a football game is finished, there is supposed to be loud cheering.

When the final horn sounds, bands are supposed to break out in the fight song and fans sometimes storm the field.

In Alpine on Friday, the Fightin’ Bucks upset the Reagan County Owls 39-32.

Instead of wild cheering from the faithful masses at Jackson Field, there was dead silence.

With this victory also came defeat.

Alpine needed to beat Reagan County by nine points to advance to the Class 2A playoffs. Instead, the Owls earned the final playoff berth.

“It was dead silent,” Alpine coach Shad Hanna said. “No bands playing, no fans cheering, no anything. Both teams were losers that night.”

In sports, there always is a winner and a loser. That is how games work — except when situations like Friday happen.

“It was so strange. The whole game I knew we had to win by nine,” Hanna said. “Every time I looked at the scoreboard, I felt like we were losing, even though we were ahead.”

Alpine came close.

The offensive line blocked better than it had all season, the wide receivers ran great routes and quarterback Moises Estrada threw for 385 yards.

But none of that was enough to get Alpine back to the playoffs for a second consecutive season.

“When that game was over and I look up there and we won by seven and I got kids crying and I’m on my knees,” Hanna said. “I walked over to shake their coach’s hand, and (Reagan County) was down and upset ’cause they just lost a game.”

There was another way Alpine could have advanced — if Ozona had upset Kermit. Hanna found out that wasn’t going to be a possibility at halftime. The Yellowjackets went on to win 48-7.

So, Hanna did everything he could to try and get his team back to the playoffs.

He had his team attempt two-point conversions after its first four touchdowns — and they converted all four.

He used onside kicks.

He went for first downs on fourth downs.

Alpine came up short, so now the Fightin’ Bucks must try to bounce back next year and win early games in district so it doesn’t come down to a points system or hoping other teams lose.

Then, athletes in Alpine won’t have to hear that strange, stony silence like they did on Friday.