The Arizona College Prep Knights’ sideline fell completely still as their star wide receiver, sophomore Bryan Dyson, limped off the field.

Dyson had touched the ball only twice in the first half, and both receptions resulted in the only two touchdowns on the scoreboard for the Knights.

Dyson went down with a leg cramp in the third quarter of ACP’s first regional matchup of the season against the Coronado Dons, both teams 0-5. Unable to even stand on his own, Dyson seemed unlikely to return.

But after some stretching, the sophomore receiver picked his helmet back up and slowly jogged back onto the field before the quarter was up.

Shortly after Dyson’s return to the game, he ran for his longest reception of the night. ACP was backed into their end zone due to consecutive offensive flags, the tip of the ball grazing the white paint of the goal line. Quarterback Mark Chavez received the snap and tossed it almost immediately to Dyson, who then skirted past half the Dons defense and hugged the sideline the remaining 80 yards for the Knights’ third and final touchdown of the night.

Despite the long reception, Dyson said he was still very much in pain, but he was determined to get back on the field and help his team.

Following Dyson’s 200-plus yards and two touchdowns in last week’s game against Tanque Verde, coach Myron Blueford said he knew the Dons defense would be looking for the receiver. He decided not to rely on Dyson as heavily going into Friday night’s game for this reason specifically.

“We tried to use the other guys and see what they do,” Blueford said. “It opened up a lot so a lot of what [Dyson] showed up with in the second quarter was based on things we did in the first to set it up.”

Dyson did not touch the ball once during the entire first quarter and the majority of the second quarter. During that time, Chavez struggled to complete a pass and was sacked three times. But as soon as Dyson lined up on the line of scrimmage, the Coronado defense was frazzled.

“We tried to match up our best kid against theirs, and sometimes we couldn’t get it worked out,” Coronado coach Curt LeBlanc said.  “They had an athlete that was better than our athlete.”

Even with his leg injury and not touching the ball until the second quarter, Dyson still finished the night with 188 total yards.