There came a point in the second half last Friday night when Reagan Roof posed a question to himself.

“What else could go wrong?”

Fortunately for Roof and the Kingfisher High School football team, nothing more was added to the list as they erased a two-score deficit to emerge from North Rock Creek with a 19-18 victory.

“That’s a game that if we hadn’t found a way to win, we really could have been looking back on it with a lot of regret,” said Roof.

But the Jackets did. Now they’re 4-0 for the first time since 2013, which was the year of Kingfisher’s last football state title.

It also put KHS at 1-0 in what’s expected to be an uber-competitive District 3A-1.

Late in the third quarter, it didn’t appear the victory was meant to be.

The Jackets forced a North Rock Creek punt, but it bounced off the chest of Steel Snodgrass.

The Cougars recovered at the KHS 10 and a couple snaps later, Lance Carter ran in a 3-yard touchdown to give his team an 18-7 lead.

It was the latest in a list of mishaps that had hampered a game KHS had otherwise dominated, especially in the first quarter.

The Jackets took the opening drive 65 yards and chewed more than half of the first quarter off the clock when Brett Calamateo scored on a 12-yard run.

The swarming Kingfisher defense forced a quick three-and-out and the Kingfisher offense resumed another time-consuming drive, almost exclusively on the ground.

“Our original game plan was to establish our run because we felt we could be successful doing it,” Roof said. “But we also wanted to keep it out of their hands because we were worried about how explosive they were.”

The game plan was working until a slip on the turf and a penalty put the Jackets in a throwing situation.

Tyson Hawkins - the younger brother of current OSU Cowboy Caleb Hawkins, who scored six touchdowns against KHS the last time the game was played on Stan Beesley Field - looked like his older sibling by intercepting a Calamateo pass and breaking numerous tackles en route to a 95-yard touchdown.

“I think with how the game was going, if we had scored on that possession, we’re looking at a different kind of game,” Roof said. “But that play got them right back in it.”

And it started the cascade of missteps for the offense:

• On the next possession, Ace Hawkins - the even younger brother of Caleb and Tyson - intercepted a River Roof offering;

• Then on the next possession, Calamateo fumbled on one of his carries and it was picked up by Tyson Hawkins. That led to one of only a handful of big plays for the NRC offense, a 69yard touchdown pass from Cooper Standlee to Lance Painter;

• The Jackets had a chance to reverse their fortunes on their first drive of the second half and had a first-and-goal inside the 10 and second-and-goal inside the 5. A penalty stalled the momentum and KHS eventually turned it over on downs.

That was four promising possessions that ended with some form of turnover, all of which led up to the mishandled punt.

“It was a weird feeling because we felt we were dominating the game, but at the same time it felt like we were just trying to hand it over to them,” Roof said.

When Carter scored the touchdown, it gave the Cougars an 11-point lead with 49 seconds to go in the quarter.

However, it was down to a five-point margin before the fourth would start.

That’s because the Jackets never abandoned the running game that never faltered. “We had been running for big chunks and had been close to breaking a big one all night,” Roof said.

The big one came on the next possession as Drew Snider burst through the line of scrimmage and then outran the Cougar secondary for a 50-yard touchdown.

With three seconds left in the quarter, it was an 18-13 game and the Jackets had new life.

“Our mindset going into that drive was that there was still plenty of time and that we needed to keep running the ball,” Roof said. “If we didn’t score on that drive, then maybe we’d have to get in more of a panic mode, but that allowed us to settle back in.”

Although it wasn’t finished, the play put an exclamation point on the biggest night of Snider’s young career.

Behind the efforts of the linemen - Donovan Dunn, Adan Mendez, Taegen Pool, Briar Kester and Carson Swafford - Snider, and also Calamateo, had been breaking off runs in chunks.

20 yards. 8 yards. 8 yards. 11 yards. 9 yards. 8 yards. 12 yards. They added up. So did the punishment being delivered by the physicality of the linemen and the ball carriers.

“We felt we could start wearing them down and by the fourth quarter, we felt we had done that,” Roof said.

Kingfisher’s defense forced a quick punt and the Jackets got their next possession at their own 37 with 9:58 to play.

It was evident what KHS was going to do.

“As play callers, we got stubborn. We decided we were just going to run it every time because when we tried throwing it, it seemed like something bad happened.

“Plus, it’s tough to throw it when you’re running for 8 yards every time.”

So maybe it caught the Cougars a bit by surprise when Calamateo did drop back to pass.

He delivered a pass down the seam just over the shoulders of a well-covered Collin Farrar, who somehow pulled it in for a 43-yard gain.

That helped set up what was a 2-yard touchdown run by Calamateo for a 1918 lead with 6:37 to play.

But the work still wasn’t done.

North Rock Creek managed to drive into Kingfisher territory and eventually faced a 4th and 1 at the Jacket 24 with about 4:40 to play.

From a heavy backfield set, Standlee handed it off to his most potent weapon - Tyson Hawkins.

He was first hit by Cam-den Weinmeister on one side and then Jayzen Surveyor on the other.

If that wasn’t enough, the 270-pound Dunn had shrugged off all blockers and was waiting in the gap to finish it all off.

The play resulted in a loss and NRC had been denied.

The Cougars would get one more opportunity after a Jacket punt, but an Eduardo De La Torre sack, his second of the game, led in part to a 4th-and-long.

A pass play fell well short of the sticks and Kingfisher was able to ride out the clock.

The Jackets won despite losing the turnover battle 4-0 and facing a two-score deficit late in the third quarter.

“They never had a series where they pouted and quit playing hard,” said Roof.

He said assistant coach Dylan Blundell put it even better in the locker room afterward.

Blundell made note there was no “BCD” by the Jackets on the field or on the sideline when plays started going south.

That’s blame (others), complain (about circumstances) and defend (make excuses).

“That’s a good compliment to this team,” Roof said. “There was never any of that.”

Defense helped overcome the turnovers. The Jackets gave up about three big plays through the air, but nothing on the ground.

Standlee was 14 of 22 for 238 yards, but got 134 of them on three plays.

The Cougars managed just 28 yards on 24 rushing attempts.

That’s because the Jackets lived in the backfield yet again with 11 tackles for loss.

Dunn led that state with three, part of his seven overall tackles, including a sack.

De La Torre and Weinmeister were both in on 2.5 TFLs.

Weinmeister also had seven overall stops while De La Torre had six.

Brason Pinkston and Surveyor made themselves part of seven tackles apiece while Carter Stephenson had six.

Snider led the team with eight tackles, including 1.5 for a loss.

On offense, he ran through, around and away from the Cougars for 176 yards on 23 carries.

Calamateo toted it 23 times as well and accounted for 90 yards.

That also helped overcome the turnovers.

“We knew we were moving the ball on them and stopping them enough that we just had to quit turning it over,” Roof said. “We didn’t feel like they were beating us; we were beating ourselves.

“Once we fixed that, we were able to take the game back over.”