Picture courtesy of Tanner Colvin

The Salina South Cougars were looking for a transformative season, but they wanted much more.

Alas, it ended sooner than they had planned.

After securing the program’s first winning record and home postseason game in a dozen years, the Cougars came up short Friday in their Class 5A playoff opener, falling to Maize South, 17-14, at Salina Stadium.

The Cougars’ final 6-3 record exceeded the win total of the previous five seasons combined and came just one year after an improbable three-game playoff run to the state quarterfinals. But in the end that was small consolation.

“When you turn the ball over, it’s hard to win games,” third-year South coach Christien Ozores said after watching his team lose two fumbles — one for a backbreaking Maize South defensive touchdown — and throw two interceptions.

Trailing by 10 points following a pivotal 48-yard field goal from Jaguars kicker Aldo Acosta with 1:31 left, South answered with a 78-yard scoring drive culminating in a 6-yard Izrael Telles-to-Kobie Henley touchdown pass. But it was too little, too late.

“I feel like our senior class, the way we went out definitely wasn’t how we wanted it,” said Henley, who had two interceptions on defense in addition to three catches for 27 yards as a part-time receiver. “But all those mornings we had training, trying to change the program around — our morning weight sessions and after school weight sessions — all we wanted was to just get this football thing turned around.”

“We finally did it, and we just couldn’t make things happen at the end.”

In their third year under Ozores, the Cougars built on the momentum of last year’s postseason success in which they won just one regular-season game but pulled off two major playoff upsets before falling to rival and eventual state champion Salina Central in the quarterfinals.

They then ended a six-game losing streak against the Mustangs in this year’s season opener and kept the ball rolling. The Cougars’ only regular season losses came against Class 6A powers Derby and Maize and included a 19-14 victory over the same Maize South team.

“The guys did a great job,” said Ozores, whose first South team went 1-8 coming off back-to-back winless seasons. “This senior class is putting so much work into changing it around and going from an 18-game losing streak or whatever it was to now having a winning record and beating (Salina) Central.”

“But we didn’t finish the job. We talked about that. We had three goals and we met two of them, so we come back hungry next year.”

It was a rough night offensively for the Cougars against a rugged Maize South defense that had junior quarterback Telles under duress most of the game. Two lost fumbles on botched center snaps led to both Jaguar touchdowns, including an end zone recovery that broke a 7-7 tie less than a minute into the fourth quarter.

“We were dinged up (on the offensive line) with three starters out, and so we had to get some younger guys in there and try to get some more max protection,” Ozores said. “But (Maize South) were getting to us quick and did a good job schematically.”

The Cougars finished with 220 total yards, including 174 through the air, but nearly 80 of those yards came on the final drive. Senior Armane Redmond’s 85 rushing yards were offset by multiple quarterback sacks and 38 lost yards on the two fumbles.

The South defense fared much better, allowing one 30-yard touchdown pass on a trick play after the first lost fumble. The Cougars held Maize South to 151 total yards.

“They did a great job,” Ozores said. “They were flying around, and we knew with a younger quarterback (Maize South freshman Ridge Cahoone) we had to get pressure.”

“The defensive coaches did a really good job, and we kept the ball in front for the most part outside the one trick play.”

For the departing seniors, they could take solace in the fact that they leave South football in much better shape than when they suffered through an 0-9 freshman campaign.

“I feel like our senior class really took a big leap in the right direction, just leaving our footprint and really leaving our mark,” Henley said. “We wanted to show what we could get the South program to really look like.”

“I hope the underclassmen — the freshmen and even the middle-schoolers coming in — can just continue stacking day by day, continue stacking years on years.”