Touchdown Puts Oil City Girl in Record Books

| October 18, 2015

mackenzie2TITUSVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – Scoring a touchdown in a high school football game isn’t typically followed by tears.
(Photo: Mackenzie’s post-game selfie.)

But when Mackenzie Riley of Oil City scored on a 1-yard run late in the first half during the Oilers 27-6 win at Titusville Friday night, tears followed. And as Riley so eloquently put it, there was nothing wrong with the tears – after all she is a girl. And the first girl in Oil City football history to score a touchdown and possibly the first girl in District 10 history to score a touchdown to boot.

“I got up and was screaming, ‘I got a touchdown, I got a touchdown’,” Riley said Saturday. “Then I started to cry. The guys were saying that I was the first person they had ever seen scream about scoring a touchdown and then start to cry. And I’m like, well, I’m a girl.”

In the huddle prior to the touchdown, Riley said her thought when her number was called was “oh god, here we go. Hold onto the football with your life”.

“All the guys were like hold onto the ball,” Riley said. “Truthfully, I kind of blacked out from the time I got the ball until the play was over. There were two players on top of me and two under me. They had to get them off of me to see if I had scored. But one of my teammates had a view from the side, and he knew I was in.”

Riley’s journey to the score the touchdown Friday night wasn’t an easy one.

She first played football when she was in fifth grade becoming the first girl in Oil City pee-wee football history to play tackle football, but then health issues derailed her football career until this year.

When she decided to give it a try, or “go out with a bang” as she put it, she approached Oil City head coach Matt LaVerde.

“Coach LaVerde was like of course you can play. He was like, if you can do it, I’d love to have you,” Riley said. “I was really excited.”

While Riley was excited she also had to overcome some skepticism from her teammates.

“I think they were a little skeptical,” Riley said. “I think they felt I was too tiny. I’m 5-foot-10 but thin as a rail. I had to prove them wrong.”


Copyright © 2024 EYT Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of the contents of this service without the express written consent of EYT Media Group, Inc. is expressly prohibited.

Category: Uncategorized