When the season began, Lake Travis’ latest playoff hero never imagined he’d get the chance to kick the Cavaliers to a last-second win.

Yet after starting the season on the junior varsity, that’s exactly where sophomore kicker Braydon Doane found himself in the closing seconds of Friday’s 6A, Division I Bi-District playoff game against 4th-ranked Vandegrift.

With just 6 seconds left in a 10-10 game, Doane lined up a 35-yard field goal try that could win the game.

“I was thinking it was just another kick,” Doane said. “Just like warmups. Just like practice. It was just like another PAT.”

Except it wasn’t. His kick split the uprights with 1 second left to give his team the 13-10 win.

“We have known that he is going to be a star,” Lake Travis coach Hank Carter said. “He’s just a sophomore so he’s going to mature physically, but the good thing about those young guys is maybe they don’t get too nervous in those spots. He just went up there and kicked it.”

The kick came after Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders called timeout. While Sanders hoped the timeout would make Doane think about the magnitude of the moment, the kicker said it actually helped. Prior to the timeout, Doane admitted that he miscounted the yardage and set his spot only 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage instead of the customary 7. Sanders’ time out gave Doane a chance to reset.

“The timeout was helpful,” he said. “One of my teammates noticed that I was too close and I was able to fix it.”

Doane’s game-winning kick came after the defense secured a crucial stop of Vandegrift’s offense with 4 minutes left. As he watched his offense grind out yard after yard and a pair of first downs, he knew the game would come down to a kick.

With 1:30 left, the Cavaliers went for – and barely converted – a 4th down and 1 from Vandegrift’s 25 in order to make a kick the last play of the game. Doane understood completely.

“I wasn’t surprised we went for it the first time,” he said. “Our run game had been dominant the entire time. We managed to get 3-4 yards each time. I had faith in our running back and faith in the o-line. I knew that if we made it we would have been able to run the clock down and give them less of an opportunity to score.”

After Nico Hamilton gained just enough to keep the drive alive, Doane’s opportunity came just 3 plays later.

“I knew it was going to come down to the kick,” Doane said. “I had all the faith that we were going to make it down where we were going to get the opportunity to kick the field goal. I was ready. I was prepared. I think we all were.”

It’s the second time in as many years that Lake Travis has won a playoff game on a last-second kick. Last year, the Cavaliers knocked off Cibolo Steele on Hunter Rioux’s walk-off field goal.

“I’ll take 5 more of those,” Carter said.