Playoff Bound: Avila Tops Friends for Historic Win

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Leading by only two points late in the fourth quarter, Malik Nesbitt, Eli Williams, and the No. 15 Avila Eagles (10-1, 9-1 KCAC) pulled away from Friends (4-7, 3-7 KCAC) in the final few minutes to secure a historic 42-26 win on Saturday afternoon at The Z. With the victory, Avila football won 10 games in a season for the first time in team history, captured its second KCAC regular season football championship in the last three seasons, and secured an automatic entry into the NAIA Football Championship Tournament for the first time in the history of the program.

For a football team that used to max out at three or four wins in a season, and had many years where one win or even zero wins was all too common, a 10-win season and a guaranteed spot in the NAIA playoffs seems almost unbelievable. But Marc Benavidez, who has been a part of this program for more than a decade as a player, assistant coach, and now head coach, believed in his players and coaching staff the entire time.

"In 2020 we came really close, and there are a lot of similarities between that year and this one, and our guys understood our goal, how close we were," Benavidez said postgame Saturday. "These guys understand what it takes to be successful, with our coaches leading by example and putting in the work, I absolutely believed it was possible."

But the path to this unprecedented season was far from smooth. In fact, this season feels even more unbelievable considering the team lost one of their own, Justin Barbee, who passed away mere days before Avila's first game of the season against Tabor. That news was crushing, but it was never overpowering. Instead, the team fully believed that even though Barbee was no longer present physically, he remained with the team in their hearts and minds every step of the way.

"This moment right here… he knows how proud I am to make it this far for him, because he's supposed to be here with us. He is here with us. I'm always thankful for him for him coming into my life and helping me. He's always with me," fellow running back Malik Nesbitt told reporters postgame.

And Saturday's season finale was far from easy, either. Avila entered the day knowing it just had to win and the conference championship and the playoff spot was theirs, but this year's Friends team was far from the league bottom-feeder it was a season ago when Avila trounced them in the season finale in Wichita.

Friends brought in Terry Harrison, the architect of the excellent Bethel teams of the last few seasons, to lead the Falcons' program, and his team gave the Eagles a real challenge. After Friends scored first Avila scored two straight touchdowns to take a 14-6 lead, but from there, every time the Eagles scored the Falcons answered: Friends pulled back to within two points on three separate occasions, keeping it close until the Eagles' stars simply made a couple of big plays to put the game away and secure up a spot of history.

Saturday began with Senior Day at The Z, with Avila honoring a dozen members of the winningest class in Avila football history. As has been customary, the Eagles started off the game with a Senior Day showcase: with seniors like Jacob Kruckenberg, Roberto Lopez-Gomez and ShaiQuan Ayers lined up to provide a diversion, quarterback Julious Sabastiano linked up with Andrew Williams for a gain of 40 yards down the right sideline, and a Falcon penalty put the Eagles inside the red zone immediately.

The early excitement quickly simmered down, however, because two plays later Friends' Shamarius Davis recovered a fumble and took it back 75 yards to the house to open the scoring. For the second straight week, the Eagles needed to play from behind. But for the second straight week, after a somewhat slow start, the Eagles ultimately got things rolling.

Bobby Schmidt missed a field goal that would have put Friends up 9-0 and the Eagles took full advantage. Eli Williams took over at quarterback and hit Loagnn Freeman for a first down on Senior Day before hitting Andrew Williams for another big gain, this one for 55 yards and the first score of the day for Avila.

In the second quarter the Eagle defense forced a three-and-out, and even though a penalty wiped out a would-be touchdown on the ensuing Avila drive, the Eagle offense quickly made up for it, with Williams linking up with Kendal Wooley in the end zone for a 26-yard score, giving the Eagles a 14-6 lead.

But the Falcons simply did not go away. Friends embarked on a 15-play drive – 14 of the plays were runs in Harrison's patented triple option offense – ending in a rushing score by Kaden Rigsby. The Eagles snuffed out the two-point try to tie the game and swiftly marched down the field themselves before Williams was intercepted in the end zone, keeping the halftime score 14-12 in favor of the home team.

Nikolas Furlow and Jose Bautista combined for a TFL on fourth down to stamp out Friends' first drive of the second half, and two plays later Melvin Reid took a short toss 45 yards to the house to extend Avila's lead. Friends once again answered with a touchdown plunge from Zach Dressler before Eli Williams answered right back, scrambling for 30 yards on a third down and then punching it in from three yards out, restoring a 28-19 lead with 3:06 left in the third.

Both teams punted to start the fourth quarter before Friends presented one final push: another drive of 14 plays that flashed some of the Falcons' passing ability and ended in a 7-yard pass from Jack Mullen to Austin Pratt. Schmidt hit the PAT, and the score was once again just a two-point margin, 28-26, with 4:20 left to play.

With a slim lead in unquestionably the biggest game in team history, the Eagles' offensive stars delivered right when they were needed most. On the ensuing drive, Williams rushed for 27 yards on two plays, setting the stage for Nesbitt to dash 61 yards down the left sideline, through multiple defenders, and into the end zone for the score.

On the very first play of the next drive, Laken Clowdus failed to handle a Mullen pitch, and Terrell Valentine hit the deck to fall on the loose change, giving the Eagles the ball right back. If that wasn't enough of a backbreaker, on the very first play of the next drive, Nesbitt scampered 34 yards for the score, breaching the end zone for the second time in less than 30 seconds of game time.

That extended Avila's lead up to 42-26, their largest of the game, with 2:45 to play. A combo sack from Jordan Thomas and Jetton Murph on Senior Day spelled the end of the Falcons' next drive, and all Williams had to do was kneel the ball once to wrap up the win on a historic Saturday in south Kansas City.

Nesbitt finished his final regular season with 129 yards on just ten carries (12.9 average) and two touchdowns. It's his third straight game over the century mark, and he finished just shy of 1,000 rushing yards after reaching that mark the last two seasons. Eli Williams threw for 258 yards and rushed for another 115, accounting for four total touchdowns, one of which went to Andrew Williams, who finished with four grabs and 115 yards.

Dressler has had an excellent season as the feature back in the Falcons' flexbone offense and continued that success in his season finale Saturday, rushing for 134 yards and a touchdown. But the Eagle defense stopped up every other rusher the Falcons trotted out, holding everyone else to 104 yards on 29 carries. Joey Mars capped his excellent sophomore season with a game-high 14 tackles, and Lloydarius Garner had 11, including a TFL and a quarterback hurry.

The win brought Avila's final conference mark to 9-1, the same record as Southwestern, which defeated Kansas Wesleyan Saturday, and Bethel, which won last week and was idle this weekend. The KCAC granted all three teams a share of the 2022 KCAC Championship, Avila's second in the last three seasons.

The league has only one automatic berth into the NAIA Tournament, however, and unlike in 2020 when the Eagles lost out on a nebulous tiebreaker, the deciding factor this season is pretty clear cut: Avila holds the head-to-head tiebreaker by possessing the largest margin of victory (+11 points) in their two games against the other two tied teams. Meanwhile, both Bethel and Southwestern have a negative point differential in those two matchups, making Avila the clear winner of that tiebreaker and, by definition, giving the Eagles the KCAC's automatic berth into the NAIA Tournament. Both Bethel and Southwestern have a chance to earn an at-large bid.

Avila now knows it's into the NAIA Tournament for the first time ever, and the Eagles will find out who they play, where and when, this Sunday night on the NAIA Selection Show, will be aired at 6 PM CT live on the NAIA's Facebook page. The team is also hosting a watch party on the Avila campus that will be streamed live on the Avila Sports Network starting shortly before 6 PM.

This historic season is by no means over. Join us Sunday night to figure out where the next chapter of the 2022 season will take this record-setting Eagle squad.