WINDHAM – When Asael Garcia Rodriguez came out for football camp the summer before his freshman year, Windham High coach Randall Prose caught him looking over at the soccer field.
“We’re like, ‘Don’t look over there!’” Prose said, laughing.
Rodriguez was a soccer player who started playing football when he was 10 because his older brother played. When he came to Windham, he wasn’t sure which sport to play but he decided to try football. He really still liked soccer.
Rodriguez, a senior fullback who also plays defensive end and is a kicker, ended up sticking with it. Tuesday night, his soccer background helped when he kicked a 25-yard field goal with two seconds left to give Windham a 17-14 win over Ledyard in the Class SS quarterfinal game at Windham High.
It was the first time in the last three years Windham advanced beyond the first round and the second-seeded Whippets (10-1) will host No. 3 Sheehan (who beat the Whippets in the quarterfinal game last year) on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in the Class SS semifinal.
“I saw the time – there was two seconds left,” Rodriguez said. “I knew I had a good leg. I just wanted to win. I didn’t want to go to overtime. We were already tired and it was cold.
“I just put all my trust in God. Put my head down. They snapped it. Just kicked it as hard as I can, it went in. I’ll never forget it. It was crazy.”
Rodriguez did pretty much everything Tuesday, rushing for 189 yards, scoring two touchdowns (the first on a 58-yard run), kicking the extra points and the field goal.
“Asael’s a great defensive end,” Prose said. “He holds down the fort there. We ask a lot of him: ‘You got to man the wide side, go to their strong side, and then you got to carry the rock 30 times a game.’”
Rodriguez has rushed for 1,547 yards and 15 touchdowns this season.
Prose knew Rodriguez loved soccer but he hoped he would choose football when he was a freshman.
“He knows more professional soccer players than football players,” Prose said. “His friends are all on the soccer team. His cousin just got all-state for soccer.
“We weren’t sure if we were going to get him or not. It was 50-50. I think his brother had some influence.”
Even then, Rodriguez almost switched freshman year. But his friend, Malachi Fowler, a top offensive guard/middle linebacker whom prep schools were after, said he would stay at Windham if Rodriguez kept playing football.
“I didn’t want to see him go because he was my best friend,” Rodriguez said. “He still is. So I stayed playing football and it was the best decision I made.”
Tuesday night, Windham trailed Ledyard 14-7 in the fourth quarter. Prose wasn’t too worried.
“Five-six minutes left and we’re driving to score,” he said. “I knew we were going in, we’ve been a fourth quarter team all year. It’s amazing. These kids blow my mind that they take over games in the fourth quarter when there’s no subs; they’re out there the whole time. This is when they own the game. I can’t figure it out. Other than we just pound people and Asae’s a guy they have to tackle the whole game and he’s a big boy.”
The question was after the Whippets scored, should they go for the extra point to tie it or the two-point conversion for the win?
Prose loves his assistant coaches. They always have an opinion. But they didn’t Tuesday.
He laughed.
“OK, I’m like, ‘All right, kick it,’” Prose said. “(Rodriguez) made the extra point which was critical too to tie it up. He had some big kicks. Two extra points and a field goal. And two touchdowns.
“He just put them on his back.”