The Final Ride at 30: Looking back at Huntington's final cross-town rivalry game
- Staff
- Sep 15
- 6 min read
Monday marks the 30th anniversary of the final game between the Huntington High Pony Express and Huntington East Highlanders, which took place on the fabled grounds of old Fairfield Stadium on September 15, 1995.
The game brought an end the 55-year series between the crosstown rivals.
The game also came during major changes in West Virginia public education, as consolidation was in full swing across the area.
Just 2 years prior, both Milton and Barboursville high schools had consolidated, forming the current school known today as Cabell Midland. The schools borrowed the silver color of Milton and red of Barboursville to form their school colors.
And in the fall of 1997, Spring Valley would be formed after consolidating the schools of Vinson, Ceredo-Kenova, and Buffalo-Wayne.
As for Huntington, they chopped off the word "East", but kept the Highlanders nickname to get the current name everyone knows today.
Ironically for former Huntington head coach Rich Williams, he has the rare distinguishment of being at the helm of two of those aforementioned schools when they closed its doors.
"It was just a little different situation. I was the last person to be head coach at Milton, which is the school I played at. Then I got the opportunity after Milton was shut down to become Cabell Midland and got to go to Huntington. And the Pony Express, the people there absolutely embraced me like none other."
The build up to the game featured special write-ups in the Herald-Dispatch, that reflecting on the rivalry through the years. Even a former captain of the 1940 Huntington team — who was living in Myrtle Beach at the time — would be coming back and bringing with him the game ball from that first game between the two schools.
Even Williams got into the hype of the game by being brought in on a stretcher to the school pep rally on that Thursday. His players carried him up onto the stage in front of the student body, and he stood up and told the student body "We ain't dead yet".
"We had a pep rally, and I don't want to take credit for it, but I got the idea from Pepper Rodgers who coached at Georgia Tech. He was a card. He rode in on a motorcycle once and I tried to do something similar and put my spin on it."
But for that final night, East and Huntington gave the packed crowd of 9,000 fans a game to remember for a lifetime.
Williams recalled the novelty of the game from the run out onto the field to the atmosphere in the stands.
"One side was absolutely packed. And the other side, which was halfway torn down, it had some bodies over there also. Both fans from Huntington East and Huntington High were sitting side-by-side, you couldn't hear yourself think."
"Even the bands were very competitive. East took great pride in their band, as did ours. I think they even allowed both bands to play the whole game, even when we were calling signals. That's something that wasn't allowed at all, but no one cared that night."
"We had an actual live thoroughbred that a girl rode out into the stadium with us when we came out. I don't think she got permission to do it for the first game we played that season. But she wanted to do it and I'm glad she did. But we got permission to do it again for the game and it was a beautiful moment."
But the beautiful moment turned into a nightmare for Williams and his squad right after kickoff.
In fact, on the very first play from scrimmage East running back Mike Blake took a basic handoff from the formation, went off tackle and weaved his way 66 yards for the first points of the game. The junior even broke a tackle and made a cutback to find his way into the end zone. Robert Wilhelm added the extra point to make it a 7-0 margin.
"Their big play was running off tackle. Mike Blake was a big back, close to 200 pounds and was strong as a horse. He broke through a couple tackles and they're up 7-0."
Wilhelm later added a 37-yard field goal to extend East's lead to 10-0 with 9:59 remaining before halftime. The score was set up on a fumble recovery by Jon Gensler who had a spectacular game for the Highlanders that night.
East safety Scott Chin also came up big for the defense, coming up with 2 interceptions which continued to frustrate the Ponies offensive game plan.
For East, this game was going how they wanted it too. And they looked well on their way to delivering the knockout blow.
"That was old-school football. Now coach (Bob) Sang, to his credit, threw the ball a lot more than people did at the time. But if you could run the ball better than the other team, you could win."
A punt backed up the Highlanders in the shadow of their own goal line. And while they were able to manufacture a first down, they wound up punting, thus giving the Ponies the ball at midfield just before halftime.
The Ponies moved the ball down the field inside the red zone with some tough runs from fullback Junior Brown who ripped off a run of 21. Then teammate Rico Johnson took a handoff off the left side 12 yards putting the ball at the East 12.
Huntington could only get as far as the 9 and settled for a field goal.
Junior Brown's 26-yard field goal was true and cut East's lead to just 10-3 at the break.
Williams said that he and his staff preached the same message they had sold to the team all offseason — which was they would remember this moment and to go out and make it a good memory.
"We made all the mistakes we could make and we were still playing with them. There's no reason to win this last game and remember it for the rest of your life."
The Ponies continued to chip away little by little in the second half as the defense stymied East's strong offensive attack.
But the Ponies still trailed by 7 entering the final quarter of the game and of the series.
A big play was needed.
Early in the fourth, quarterback Lavonzo Dotson rolled to his right and lofted pass to his tight end James Payton in the back of the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown pass to cut into East's lead.
Huntington dipped into its bag of tricks and went for a fake on the extra point. The pass attempt fell incomplete, but East was flagged for passing interference moving the ball half the distance and retry.
Everything seemed to point towards the Ponies taking the lead, but Dotson slipped while coming out from behind center and was ruled down as he knee made contact with the turf and East still led 10-9 with 10:15 remaining.
The Highlanders tried to run the ball and melt the clock on their next two drives but could not. The Ponies managed to force a fumble on East's next drive and then forced a punt on the following possession.
The Ponies took over at midfield following East's punt and mounted their final drive.
The drive appeared to have stalled out at the 8-yard line with Williams electing to line up and go for the field goal to take lead.
But as everyone got set up to see if Johnson could make the kick, East was hit with a neutral zone infraction, giving the Ponies a first down and the ability to run more of the clock out.
Two plays later, Johnson took a handoff from Dotson out of the power I and plunged into the end zone to give Huntington its first lead of the game as one-half of the stadium erupted into a frenzy.
"What a good young man (Rico) was. His teammates loved him," said Williams.
Brown added the point after to make it 16-10 with 1:05 remaining.
East had one final chance, but a desperation pass was interception on the final play sealing the win for the Pony Express.
As the dust settled on the rivalry, a new era was forged in the postgame as the teams met at midfield for a rare postgame prayer amongst both teams.
"I give credit to coach Sang. He came to me beforehand and said "after the game, why don't we all pray together", and I was more than happy to agree."
And while both teams agreed, there was still that brief moment of tension.
"We walked over to them and you could hear a pin drop because they knew what was coming. Not the prayer part. But the celebration was coming."
For coach Williams it wasn't just a celebration, it was a memorable final ride.