El Dorado 9th grader Eric Flores said he was planning to cheer on the Wildcats from the stands Friday night in their first round playoff game against Russellville.
As it turned out, people in the stands ended up cheering for him.
Flores said his Friday night plans were, “To go home and then watch the football game. I was going to go watch it at the stadium.”
El Dorado’s senior All-State kicker and punter, Cooper Henry, hurt his knee during pregame warmups.
Flores said his phone rang, “at 6:22.”
“They were like, can you come kick for us today. I was like, yeah, sure I can. I really thought it was a joke but then it was for real and I ended up playing.”
Flores got to the stadium, got dressed, practiced kickoffs for 10 minutes or less before the game started at 7. He ended up handling all of the kickoff duties and kicked two extra points in the Wildcats’ 38-31 victory.
“Cooper hurt his knee during pregame. One of the coaches said he heard something pop,” said El Dorado coach Chris Hill. “Cooper was out and he’s been a huge weapon for us all year long. You lose one of the best kickers in the state at six o’clock on Friday night. It’s tough. One of the junior high coaches got on the phone and gave him a call. He’s sitting at home. He hurries up and gets to the field. We suited him up.
“He handled all the kickoffs. I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on him early. I decided we’d go for two to take a little pressure off him. We did not execute well at all on two-point conversions. We got him out there at halftime and made him do some PATs. He made those. Shoot, he kicked some PATs, made it a seven-point lead so he was a huge, huge contributor for us.”
Flores was the backup kicker on the undefeated freshman team.
When he went in to do kickoffs, he admitted, “I was kind of nervous.”
When he went in to do extra points, he added, “ A little more nervous.”
The kickoffs were important but the two extra points were crucial for the Wildcats, who were 0-for-4 on two-point conversions in the first half.
Jeremiah Warner scored the game-winning touchdown for El Dorado with 1:06 left on the clock. As the Wildcats were driving, a lot of the eyes in Memorial Stadium were on Flores as he kicked balls into a net on the sideline.
What if he’d had to attempt a game-winning field goal?
“Yeah, they were all telling me I might have to,” Flores said. “I was like, ‘ooh, I don’t know about that.’ I was going to go for it.”
El Dorado junior quarterback Cannon Jacobs was the holder on extra points in the game.
“To be honest, I really don’t know his name,” Jacobs said of Flores. “He was at his house watching TV. Cooper got hurt and we just called him and he showed up and he showed out for us. That’s what we needed from him.”
Hill said Henry’s status for next week’s playoff game at Greenwood was still to be determined. It’s doubtful Flores could get to the second round game with less than a hour’s notice so he’ll make the trip just in case.
If the freshman has to kick again?
“I think he got a lot of confidence tonight and we have confidence in him,” said Hill. “It was a good night for that young man.”
Flores said if his number gets called next week, “I’ll just do my job again, I guess. I love El Dorado.”