PRAIRIE VIEW — All Kenny Harrison could think about was how far Port Arthur Memorial had come from Tropical Storm Harvey.

And how close the Titans came to another game, more than three months after Harvey put their season in doubt.

“Just hard to explain,” Harrison said, his emotion overflowing following a 33-29 loss to Temple on Friday at Prairie View A&M’s Panther Stadium. “Our kids fought, played hard, man, coming back from the hurricane, coming back from everything they went through with the hurricane, living in shelters. A lot of our kids being homeless and then just coming out and fighting hard like this [Friday], it’s just hard for it to end like that.”

With 22 seconds left, Zion Leach punched in the winning touchdown on a 2-yard run after a 42-yard pass from T.J. Rumfield to Xavier Johnson.

Just 32 seconds earlier, Memorial (9-2) appeared on its way to meeting Manvel in next Friday’s 5A Division I Region III championship game. Kenny Pham converted a 25-yard field goal that broke a 26-all tie.

Pham would have been just one of the Titans’ heroes. Xavier Hull returned a kickoff 91 yards that tied the game (along with Keitha Jones’ two-point conversion run).

Hull, who had three catches for 111 yards, had a busy night that began with a 73-yard kickoff return.

“Both teams played a good game,” Hull said after greeting Memorial fans in the stands. “We kept in the game. We listened to our coaches and we stayed together, and we just kept playing for 48 minutes, like he told us to. But, we both played hard. What happens, happens. We move on.”

Clutch plays like the ones Hull made were what he envisioned when he returned to Memorial after beginning the season at The Woodlands, where he stayed following Harvey. A UIL policy announced shortly after Harvey allowed displaced players to return to their home districts and compete immediately.

“The first one, I was just listening to my coach,” Hull said. “He said, ‘You make a move, you do what you do and we’re going to get you the ball, and I did. Then on the kick return, my coach told me, ‘Calm down, X. It’ll be OK. Then I calmed down and did what I had to do.’”

Nike Football on Thursday released a 2-minute vignette that highlighted the Titans’ journey from the devastation of Harvey, to returning to practice, to homecoming. The online video shows clips of in-depth interviews with the players as they stood near their damaged properties, as well as athletic trainer Lakisha Dorsey’s emotional recollection of Harvey’s effects.

Images like those stayed in Harrison’s mind after Friday’s games.

“Our kids showed a lot of character and a lot of pride,” said Harrison, who graduated from Memorial predecessor Thomas Jefferson in 1991. “We went into halftime down [20-12 and then] 20-18, and our kids fought for 48 minutes. Port Arthur has the best kids in the state of Texas. These are some great kids. They’re hard-nosed kids. They do everything you ask them to do. And I love these kids. My hat’s off to them.”

Memorial came up short in its quest for a state championship, but Hull is confident he gave everything he had.

“I’ve been doing this all my life,” Hull said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment to make big plays like this on this level. Now, I’m ready to go to the next level now.”

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I.C. Murrell: 549-8541. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews