Football brings lots of different people together, but so does prayer, as the players and coaches of the Walkersville and Catoctin high school football teams showed on a recent Friday.
Under the Friday night lights on Oct. 11, Walkersville hosted Catoctin for their 2019 homecoming game. Catoctin came into the game undefeated and Walkersville had only one loss so far. Each team took the field at 6:30pm.
Both sides were equally matched. When the clock ran out, the score was tied at 28-28, sending the game into overtime. Both teams fought hard to try and bring home the win. After a few nail-biting plays, however, Walkersville came out on top with the winning touchdown.
Although this was one of the most intense games of the season, the most notable part of the evening took place just after the game ended.
The Walkersville version of the song “Country Roads” played in the background, performed by WHS alumni Anthony DeVincentis. As the song played, players and coaches gathered together on the field and knelt together in prayer.
“One of our assistant coaches – Don Duman worked on the coaching staff at Catoctin for several years,” said Joe Polce, head coach of the Walkersville varsity football team. “[Coach Duman] is very close friends with Catoctin head coach Doug Williams. Both Coach Williams and Coach Duman are very spiritual men. They organized it with the help of our character coach, Pastor Tim Fisher.”
The touching moment was captured on video and was then posted to Twitter gaining 23 retweets and 143 likes. The Catoctin Football twitter page responded saying “this is really what it’s all about.”
“It was a good competition and a great game for both teams,” said Jennifer Clements, principal of Catoctin High School. “It is also a good thing when opposing teams come together after the game for something positive.”
