Every football program dreams of being a champion.

Along the journey, milestones are sometimes achieved.

For the 2022 Casteel Colts, they came into Friday night’s matchup looking to accomplish something it hadn’t before: beat the Williams Field Blackhawks. On its seventh try, Casteel was in heaven after finally defeating Williams Field 23-20 thanks to some late-game heroics.

Elijah Beamon dropped consecutive passes in the fourth quarter, but the sophomore wide receiver stepped up when it mattered most. On Landon Jury’s final pass of the night, he saw Beamon streaking down the sideline with a favorable 1-on-1 matchup.

Jury’s pinpoint pass to the back pylon found Beamon, who high pointed the football while bringing it down for a toe-tapping touchdown. With 26 seconds left in the game, Casteel retook the lead for good.

“I had two big catches early and then I dropped a few,” Beamon said. “When I dropped those coach told me not to let that get into my head. He’s going to trust me and come back to me. That’s what we did and I made a play.”

Jury rushed for a touchdown and threw two scoring passes to Beamon.

“It feels great. We just have a lot of respect for coach (Steve) Campbell, the Williams Field Blackhawks and what they do with their program,” Casteel coach Bobby Newcombe said. “We have a great group of guys at Casteel right now. They compete really well and they give for each other on and off the field.”

Williams Field’s final scoring attempt fell short in the final seconds.

The team’s head coach, Steve Campbell, blamed himself for the loss.

“They (Casteel) played hungrier than we did,” Campbell said. “They came out sharper than we did. We did not play to our expectations and they did. Coach Newcombe had them ready to go and that’s the way the game goes sometimes. So that’s on me. If my team’s not ready to play and we are not mentally focused, the only person to blame is myself.”

Despite the slow start, Williams Field made a late run to take the lead.

With 6:16 left in the fourth quarter, the Colts found themselves in the driver’s seat after Jury galloped into the end zone, extending his team’s lead to 16-7. Trying to keep their unbeaten streak alive against Casteel, Williams Field then leaned on the legs of state record-setting performer Dylan Lee to try and save the day.

After being bottled up for much of the game, Lee broke lose for a 50-yard run to put the Blackhawks in Casteel territory.

Junior quarterback Travis Ebner followed with a post route connection for a 29-yard Blackhawks’ touchdown. The momentum was beginning to shift back to the Williams Field.

Trailing 16-13 with five minutes remaining, the Blackhawks’ defense came up big, stopping the Colts on 3rd down to force a punt, allowing Lee to go to work once again. The junior made quick work of Casteel’s defense, ripping off back-to-back runs to find the end zone for the second time to give his team its first lead with 2:48 remaining in the game.

The Colts were stunned. On their final drive, holding penalties against the Colts’ offensive line forced a 3rd and 20.

But with Casteel backed up against their end zone, Jury scrambled out of the pocket and found a receiver wide open in the middle of the field to give the Colts new life.

“He (Jury) is just a special player,” said Newcombe, a former University of Nebraska quarterback. “He’s a 4.2 GPA kid. We spend hours in the classroom together going over and breaking down film. He audibles, checks and calls a lot of plays at the line of scrimmage. There is a lot of trust between us and he’s a pleasure to work with.”

That trust between the coach and players paid off in the final seconds when Jury found Beaman to help clinch a milstone victory for their program.

The 3-0 Colts will now prepare for a Sept. 23rd home game against Casa Grande. The Blackhawks have a short week as they host Desert Ridge on Sept. 22.