The
Southlake Carroll Dragons have gone undefeated in every state championship run
they’ve ever made. So finishing the regular season last night with a 10-0
record is comforting for those of us – and oh, that includes every Dragon fan
on earth – who harbor desires for a ninth, record-setting state trophy.
But
let’s face it, a perfect record in the regular season doesn’t mean a damned
thing in the playoffs. And the road to state this year – like every other year –
will be a long and difficult one.
But
what the hey, let’s bask in the glory of an unblemished record, at least until
the team's blond-hair dyes are completed and the black uniform pants are laundered
and distributed, both cherished playoff traditions.
The
Dragons face the Mansfield Tigers in Cowboys Stadium next Friday. Kickoff is
scheduled for 9 p.m., but since there’s an earlier game that night, it’ll
probably be closer to 10 p.m. That’s not an optimum time to play football, but
it is what it is.
The
alternative scenario, which the Dragons avoided by some last-second heroics by
the Cedar Hill Longhorns last night, was a first-round matchup on Saturday
afternoon with the aforementioned Longhorns.
Cedar
Hill was expected to easily handle South Grand Prairie in the final game of the
season. Instead, it found itself in the fight of its life and only managed to
eke out a come-from-behind victory on the last play of the game, a 7-yard TD
pass that gave it a heart-racing 37-35 victory.
If
the Longhorns had lost, they would have faced the Dragons in the first round, a
matchup that neither team wanted. If they keep winning, Southlake and 8-2 Cedar
Hill eventually will face either other, but both teams would rather that contest
come later in the post-season when they each have established rhythm and
momentum.
Instead,
the Dragons will battle the 7-3 Tigers, who dismantled Midlothian last night
62-37. Our Southlake heroes had best not look past Mansfield, a solid, disciplined
team on a roll, lest they find themselves booted early from the playoffs.
After
all, Mansfield whipped Cedar Hill last week, a 49-34 shocker that indicated the
returning state champion Longhorns might not be all their reputation implied
and the Tigers might be something more.
But
before we focus exclusively on the post season, we should tidy up last
night’s affair.
One
could almost – almost – feel sorry for the L.D. Bell Blue Raiders. A sleepy,
half-hearted effort by the Dragons, facing a hired-up Bell squad with literally
nothing to lose, left the score at halftime 17-7. It wasn’t hard to imagine the
Raiders – whose dismal 1-8 record already had snapped their playoff streak – contemplating
the delicious prospect of felling the mighty, high-flying Dragons in the
friendly confines of Pennington Field in Bedford.
A
few of us on the Dragon side exchanged raised eyebrows as the teams headed for
their locker rooms at half. We need not have worried, of course. The Dragons
came out energized in the second half, icing the game with a couple of TDs in
the third quarter before pulling their starters and dispatching Raider hopes to
oblivion.
Bell,
which had moved with some authority in the second quarter against Carroll’s
sluggish D-line, managed only a negative-4 yards during its first three
possessions in the second half. It only collected a second touchdown after Dragon
backups had replaced starters.
It
was a record-setting night for Dragon running back Lil’ Jordan Humphrey, who
left the game at halftime with 98 yards and a touchdown. He now holds Dragon records for total rushing yards during a season (1,365), for most consecutive
100-yard games (7) and for most 200-yard games (2). I’m also fairly certain he
holds the record for total rushing TDs in a season, but I don’t have that number at hand.
Senior
quarterback Ryan Agnew also was in good form, completing 13 of 18 passes for
189 yards and three TDs, one each to WRs Parker Fentriss, Tariq Gordon and Ryan
McGiboney.
His
back-up, junior Montana Murphy, who spelled him late in the third quarter,
added the final score for Carroll, a fourth-quarter, 19-yard pass to junior WR
Tommy Kane, his first reception of the season. Remember that connection, Murphy-to-Kane.
You might be hearing a lot more about it, come next season.
So
Carroll emerges from the regular season with some bumps and bruises, but with its
chief goals in hand: a perfect record against a stiff schedule, champions in
one of the toughest districts in the state and first seed in the playoffs.
And
its warriors are mostly healthy and focused on the job ahead. Sophomore
linebacker Jacob Copeland and WR/DB Tariq Gordon both left the game last night in
the first half, Copeland with a shoulder injury and Gordon with a knee. But
Gordon returned to play in the second half, and Copeland was seen on the
sideline with his helmet on, so apparently his injury is not serious. That’s
good because Copeland is having a great season at linebacker and will be needed
for the playoff inferno ahead. As for Gordon, he’s a beast on both sides of
the ball and a critical element of Dragon success.
Some
of us hoped, as we closely monitored the Cedar Hill/South Grand Prairie game,
that Carroll would end up playing the Longhorns next Saturday, instead of a “midnight
match” with Mansfield on Friday.
“We might as well face Cedar Hill now, while
they’re in the middle of a losing streak,” a buddy said as the score see-sawed
back and forth in Grand Prairie.
But the football gods decreed otherwise, and so
it’ll be the Tigers instead. Lord-a-mercy, how I love this time of year. Go
Dragons!
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