Midway through the second quarter of the Class 5A Division I State Championship game, Alvin Shadow Creek converted a “punt return” touchdown that has to be seen to believed. 

Denton Ryan punter Riley Nuzzo lined up to punt the ball at his own 28-yard line. The snap sailed over his head and went into the end zone. Nuzzo panicked and tried to kick the ball off the ground and out of the end zone towards the field. 

By the letter of the law, the call is simple: Nuzzo is credited with a fumble and called for an illegal kick – a live ball penalty – in the end zone. Since it’s a penalty in the end zone, the play is ruled a safety. 

All the players on both teams stopped, assuming the flag and the play being dead – almost all the players, that is. No one told Shadow Creek sophomore returner Randy Masters. 

“The ref didn’t blow the whistle,” Masters said. “He didn’t throw the little black thing out of his pocket or anything like that.” 

Shadow Creek’s coaches adamantly teach playing until the whistle. That’s exactly what Masters did. He picked up the ball at the 37-yard line and started running with it. While the Ryan defense froze in place, Masters ran the ball up the sidelines for a touchdown and immediately started celebrating. 

“Everybody thought the ball was dead,” Masters said. “Me, being a smart player, everyone was going to the right side. I scooped it up and went to the left. Me and my teammates, we were on the same page, so I ended up scoring.” 

Junior defensive back Jaylen Lane was the closest Shadow Creek player to Masters when he recovered the ball and started running. He disagrees.

“No, I did not know the ball was live,” Lane said. “I was just going to let it go. But Randy was very confident. As soon as he scored, he came up the sideline and was celebrating.” 

Even while the rest of the stadium looked around and confusion and high school football Twitter contacted every ref they knew to get clarification, Masters was positive that he just scored a critical touchdown. 

The referees conferred in the middle of the field. Eventually, since the ball was still live after being kicked, Shadow Creek could decline the penalty. The score gave the Sharks a critical 14-8 lead in the second quarter. 

“We had never seen a play like that so everybody thought it was impossible,” Lane said. “Everybody was screaming and yelling, everybody was excited. It changed the game and turned everything around and made us click as a team.”

It turns out, Masters’ stolen points made all the difference. The unorthodox play helped get Shadow Creek back on track after some early adversity. Quarterback Kyron Drones ran for a score early in the second half to push the lead to double-digits.

Denton Ryan made a big comeback and had a chance to win on the final play. In the end, Shadow Creek hung on to win its first state championship 28-22 in its second season of varsity football.

“[The play] was a blur, but we liked the end result of it,” Shadow Creek coach Brad Butler said.