Pensacola, FL — Forget what you heard. What you think. What the rankings told you. The Big Green, fresh off the best strength of schedule in 3S, did the unthinkable. Well, unthinkable to everyone outside of rural Fort Walton Beach. Choctaw’s Jesse Winslette scored his fourth touchdown of the night with 1:47 to play and Jayce Brown deflected a pass on fourth down to seal a 30-29 win at Pine Forest, the prohibitive favorite to win state. Wait, really!? Yes, The Big Green did it. Now Choctaw is bound for the Elite 8 and a date with Columbia, which beat Escambia 17-15 in the other Region 1-3S semifinal. How'd we get here? Welp, seeing that Choctaw lost the first matchup 28-7 to Pine Forest, adversity set the tone. But that defeat looked worse on paper. "We felt like the first time we played them is when we almost turned a corner as an offense and a defense. I know that's kind of weird because they beat us 28-7, but we played pretty good defense and we had a plan," Beasley said. "That was was really the first week our guys really started tackling really well. They’re obviously, they got athletes all over the field. We knew we had to play great up front on both sides of the ball and Jesse did a great job delivering the ball all over the field. I knew we were going to have to do that. They did a great job covering Jayce. Cole did Cole things. I don't know how much he rushed for, but he did some outstanding things also. It's great for our program obviously to win this game. It's a big step in the right direction." A step in the right direction? This team was once 1-4. Now it's 7-5. "It was just a lot of factual information you had to give the kids. Here's the facts and here's what we're doing. Here are the good things. We held Pine Forest to 28 points and no one had done that until that point. We felt good about that, so you really had to build on the positives and make our kids understand they weren't performing in critical moments. Now we're performing in critical moments. It's a testament to our kids and really a testament to our coaching staff. It's one of the best staffs I've been around. I'm just really proud of our guys in taking another step forward." That step forward was a win over last year's state runner-up. And Winslette was at the center, throwing a touchdown to Brown and running for another three scores. "It's new this year cause I didn't really run a lot last year," Winslette said of his success in the option. "I was really working on my speed and I was getting my weight up in the offseason, and it really paid off. Obviously you can see, I'm a bigger guy now and I can really power it into the end zone with that extra blocker. Cole's a great blocker. I got to give it up to my O-lineman for real, they're doing an amazing job. They're making the holes for me and I'm just getting in." The game-winner was set up by a 4th-and-13 completion to Brown. "We're down 29-23 and we had a dig call and it's play action," Winslette said. "I keep that linebacker inside and I hit the play action right behind him up the middle. Jayce ran a great route. He's clutched up. "We came here and we were prepared. Coaches got us right. And you know we just did our thang. Props to them for sure." Brown, like he's done all year, embraced the spotlight. "We practice it all, the whole practice," he said. "We do situational stuff. So when the moment came, my teammates and coaches tust me.It just worked out." That it did. Choctaw is elite.