Weather impacts for the second straight week
For the second straight week, Mother Nature had quite the impact on Texas high school football and forced a slew of games scheduled for Friday night along the coast to get moved to Thursday night. The entire Corpus Christi area saw its games played Thursday, including my scheduled Friday game pitting George West at Goliad.
There was a large slate of games in the Rio Grande Valley that were moved to Thursday as well. There were also a few cancellations, most notably El Paso Del Valle-Hutto and Converse Judson-Harlingen. The DFW area which bore the brunt of weather impacts last week was expected to be spared of the rough weather, but there were impacts and several games called early, most notably Allen-Coppell.
Newton handles West Orange-Stark in Golden Triangle showdown
As mentioned earlier, West Orange-Stark is off to a 1-2 start on the year, partly due to the dominance of Class 3A Newton who has staked its claim early on as the state’s best pound-for- pound team after an impressive 21-7 win over 4A WOS Friday night. Newton got big plays in the win from its trio of TCU commits and the defensive unit rose to the occasion on a sloppy track down in Orange. The Eagles won the game without head coach W.T. Johnston on the sidelines as he missed the game to receive medical treatment. The Eagles have a chance to make another major statement in two weeks when they host another 4A powerhouse in Gilmer.
Big rushing performances
A week ago, we had a rash of big-time rushing performances with at least six running backs statewide topping the 300-yard mark on the ground. In this day of wide-open spread offenses, we thought maybe that last week was an aberration. But wow we were wrong. The huge rushing performances continued in Week 3. Victoria West’s Tyvon Hardick, El Paso Americas’ Aaron Dumas, Benbrook’s Quintan Jackson, McKinney’s Cordrick Dunn, Dallas Hillcrest’s Nasir Reynolds and Birdville’s Laderrious Mixon all topped 300 yards rushing.
Alto’s Vidareious High had an incredible 420 rushing yards in the ‘Jackets’ win over New Diana, while Pettus RB John Hodge also ran for 420 yards and six touchdowns Friday evening and they were only second in total yards rushing. We also had some big touchdown efforts as well. On Thursday South Garland RB Jaquarion Turner ran for 196 yards in seven touchdowns in the Colonels’ win over Dallas Molina. While Fort Worth South Hills RB Anthony Watkins topped them all with a silly performance as he ran for nine touchdowns and an incredible 509 yards in the Scorpions win over Saginaw.
Highland Park gets it done with defense
Through two games the Highland Park Scots, led by junior QB Chandler Morris, appeared to be an offensive juggernaut and much like last year in their playoff run, they needed to put up some big offensive numbers to win games. Thursday night that wasn’t the case as HP won a 10-7 slugfest over Frisco Lone Star in a top 10 matchup. Highland Park’s defense forced three Lone Star turnovers and held the Rangers to just 268 yards of offense, while kicker Hudson Clark lifted HPHS to the win nailing a 22-yard field goal as time expired to keep Highland Park perfect at 3-0 on the young season.
District play kicking up statewide
Last week we just had a couple of districts get going with early district play, but we had several more start up district play in Week 3 as the nine-team districts got it going. We start in two of the 10-team districts in the state where a couple of key games that could decide the district title took place. In San Antonio, the District 28-6A race is starting to take shape as San Antonio O’Connor earned a key victory knocking off San Antonio Warren 14-7 in a defensive struggle on Friday night. Down in the Rio Grande Valley, the battle of the schools named Veterans Memorial took place Saturday night and most felt the 16-5A Division I title was on the line and it was Mission Veterans Memorial and its powerful offense pulled away from Brownsville Veterans Memorial 45-28. In 12-6A, Belton took home a key early district win knocking off longtime rival Copperas Cove 35-28 to set the tone as a team that can compete with Waco Midway and Temple for the district title. Cypress Ranch, for the third week in a row, rallied from a deficit to earn a win and this one was a massive win as the Mustangs opened 14-6A play with a 31-24 win over Houston Langham Creek. Down in Austin in 13-6A, Austin Vandegrift opened district play ending Round Rock Cedar Ridge’s district winning streak with a 17-14 win. The Vipers can put an early stranglehold on the district race with a win next week against unbeaten Pflugerville Hendrickson. In 25-6A, Lake Travis jumped out to a 42-7 halftime lead on Austin Bowie and cruised in the second half for a 42-28 win.
Mason handling larger scho