Not ‘just a kicker,’ Millbrook’s Angel Gomez an integral piece of Wildcats’ football success
A steady beat echoes from the Millbrook High’s sideline once the Wildcats’ offense takes the field. Angel Gomez grabs a football, tees it up with a kicker stand and boots the ball into a portable net.
“Thack.” Reset. “Thack.” Reset. “Thack.”
The junior kicker wants to be loose and ready, but, he adds, now that we’re into the November postseason with cooler temperatures, it’s especially important to keep his leg warm. And as any football fan knows, a kicker can mean the difference between advancing and going home.
Millbrook didn’t need a pivotal extra-point or field goal in the NCHSAA 4A playoffs’ opening round last week to get by Heritage 28-21, but Gomez’s leg was involved in a game-changing play on the 49-degree night.
With 9:34 remaining and the score tied at 21-21, Millbrook was forced to punt from its 40-yard line. Gomez took the snap and saw onrushing defenders from both sides. They seemingly had him sandwiched.
“I saw three guys coming, and I knew I couldn’t run,” Gomez said. “I had to get it off quick. I saw a little piece of space in the middle and kicked it.”
This time Gomez’s football soundtrack was one “thack” — his punt clearing the line — and two “thumps” — his 5-foot-7, 155-pound body getting hit and crashing to the cold turf. But that was OK with him. What mattered was his football instincts cleanly got off the rushed punt.
Instead of a blocked ball providing Heritage possession with prime field position, flags were thrown. The 15-yard penalty was good for a first down. Gomez trotted off the field as senior quarterback Mason Fortune and the offense returned.
Fortune, a North Carolina Mr. Football Finalist last season, mounted a drive he finished with a 17-yard pass threaded down the middle to D.K. Bryant, who was in full stride running a crossing pattern. The winning score was Fortune’s 27th TD pass of the season and 106th of his career.
Millbrook (9-2), the Northern 4A Conference runner-up and No. 12 seed, remained alive for a second-round game at 7 p.m. Friday at fifth-seeded Cardinal Gibbons (9-2), the 4A Cap 6 champions who defeated Overhills, 40-0. The teams met a year ago in the same round at the Crusaders’ field, with Millbrook winning, 42-30.
‘Team guy first’
Although Gomez played soccer when he was younger, he gave up the sport at the high school level for football. What sets him apart from football’s soccer-focused kickers — who tend to stand quietly alone or sit on the bench — is linemen and skill players alike respond to him exchanging high-fives.
“I try to cheer everybody on,” Gomez said. “I don’t want people to say, ‘He’s just a kicker.’ I’m a team guy first.”
His teammates accept him as a full-fledged football player.
“He’s always involved in our practices and our games,” Fortune said. “I really like that about him. If I do something bad in a game, he’ll come up to me and tell me, ‘It’s alright.’”
But back to that pivotal fourth-quarter play. Gomez is not a big guy, yet he can take a body blow. At Durant Middle School, he played linebacker alongside John Alacorn, Millbrook’s leading rusher this season. Gomez began to consider football his new sport in seventh grade. The decision, oddly enough, was reinforced by his leg.
“After I made a 37-yard field goal, I thought, ‘This game is for me,’” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic canceled Durant’s football season his 8th-grade year but that didn’t hinder him as a Millbrook freshman in 2021 when he was the varsity place-kicker. He shared duties with a senior, hitting 8-of-10 PATs and 4-of-4 field goals. As a sophomore Gomez made 64-of-70 PATs and 6-of-8 field goals.
Against Heritage, he was 4-for-4 on PATs, bumping his season to 48 of 49. He’s 7 of 9 on field goals with a long of 43. He says the longest field goal he’s made in practice is 53. On kickoffs, 82 percent have been for touchbacks.
For the future
Once Gomez began to dream of a college scholarship, he contacted Dan Orner, who kicked at Michigan State (1999-2000) before he transferred to North Carolina (2001-03) and set records for 50-yard field goals. Orner coaches a stable of NFL and college kickers, including 14-year NFL veteran Ryan Succop (2009-22) of Hickory. Succop’s NFL career included a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2020 season.
“Orner is good with kickers on form all the way through contact,” Gomez said. “When I started working him, I thought, ‘This works.’ So, I’ve kept building on it.”
Gomez plans to hit the recruiting camp circuit in the off-season. His three older brothers and sister are high school graduates, but Angel wants to be the first to graduate from college. He and his siblings were born here after his parents, who work in the food service industry, emigrated from Mexico.
“I want to do it for my parents and for myself,” Gomez said. “They made the impossible possible for me. I want to be able to give back to them with a scholarship so they don’t have to pay for my college education. I have a big support group from my family. Everything my parents have done is for their kids.”
