Scott Hare told a couple of students on Mesquite’s sideline to empty out the Gatorade coolers with 52 seconds remaining.

They forgot one.

Hare said he was trying to avoid being sticky and cold while his team celebrated its first football title after defeating Desert Edge 28-23 at Willow Canyon. But during Friday's postgame interviews a couple of Hare’s players dumped what was in a cooler on Hare.

The coach and his team were cool customers during the final tense minutes of Friday’s 4A championship game. Desert Edge showed a lot of fight when it was down 16-0 and 22-10 in the game.

It rallied, taking a 23-22 lead with 6:59 left in the game.

The team from Goodyear seemed poised to close out the game when Andrew Patterson intercepted a Ty Thompson pass in the end zone and almost returned it for a Pick-6. But a couple of flags on the return and a failed fourth down conversion allowed Mesquite to get the ball back with 2:26 left.

“In the last eight weeks this has been normal for us,” Hare said. “When you look back at our games, going back to Arcadia, we’ve literally won every single game we’ve played in the last two minutes in seven of the last eight games. So this really is normal for us. There was no panic. We literally were talking about what we were going to do when we got the ball back, and we executed.”

That they did.

Thompson led the team on a 70-yard, five play drive, capped by a 33-yard touchdown catch by Michael Sterling. On that drive, Michael Walker, who had a handful of clutch receptions in the game, made a 17-yard catch on third down to help set up the touchdown.

But with two minutes left on the clock, there was plenty of time for Desert Edge’s high-powered offense to strike again. Not wanting the dangerous Jihad Marks, who caught a 51-yard touchdown from Adryan Lara on the first play of the fourth quarter, to make a return, Mesquite’s kicked the ball out of bounds.

Desert Edge started its final drive at the 50 and got to Mesquite’s 29-yard line, but defensive back Jordan Wollangk picked off Lara to seal the game with 1:01 left. In the third quarter, Mesquite used some trickery to grab a 22-10 lead.

In 2009, a Hare coached team in Nevada lost a playoff game when the opponent, Galena High, executed a fumblerooski. Hare called the coach of that Galena team last week to learn how to run the trick play.

With about four minutes remaining in the third quarter, Hare called for the play he named Galena. A Mesquite teammate placed the ball between Chris Hintze’s legs near the line of scrimmage, and Hintze then rumbled 52-yards around the left side.

By the time Desert Edge brought him down, Mesquite had a first and goal from the one. A couple of players later, Hintze ended the drive with a touchdown run.

The victory for Mesquite was special for Hare and his family. Hare’s brother, Cory, and dad, Steve, are two of his assistants.

Linebacker Hunter Hanna also had a good game and joined his sister, Hailey, and dad, Mark, as state champs at Mesquite. Mark, Mesquite’s badminton coach, won a title this fall, and Hailey helped Mesquite’s beach volleyball team win a team championship last season.

“This is something we’ve been dreaming about since we were little kids,” Cory said.

The Hare family. Photo by azpreps365.com.