A defining moment: Southlake Carroll 46, Denton Guyer 34

Looks can be deceiving

DENTON – When the Denton Guyer Wildcats took the field last night for pregame warmups, they looked like a menacing horde hungry for destruction and domination.

Clad in black jerseys, dark gray pants and gleaming silver helmets, the Wildcats strode into the C.H. Collins Athletic Complex like they owned the place. And I guess in a sense, they did.

After all, Collins is their house, and it’s an impressive facility that befits Guyer’s reputation for football excellence and, yes, arrogance.

By contrast, the Southlake Carroll Dragons – attired in what the radio guys insist on describing as their “Star Wars Stormtrooper” traveling whites – looked relatively meek and unimposing.

It was, all in all, bad optics for Dragon fans, and I fought down the wave of foreboding that swept over me as I sat sweltering with the setting sun blasting me in the face.

As often happens, of course, looks can be deceiving. The seemingly meek can inherit the earth – or at least in this case, embark on a clear path to another District 5-6A championship.

As the featured game of the week in Texas high school football, the Guyer-Carroll showdown didn’t disappoint. It was a hard-hitting, high-scoring, back-and-forth affair that had both fan bases gasping and limp with emotional release when it ended.

For Carroll fans, the performance of their Dragons – behind the inspired field leadership of sophomore Quinn Ewers, was glorious to behold. Simply glorious.

Ewers was, well, magnificent. The youngster, playing in only his fifth varsity game, accounted for six touchdowns, four in the air and two on the ground. His wild 70-yard romp down the left sideline with about 2 minutes remaining stunned the surging Wildcats and slammed the door on their hopes for a last-minute miracle.

Rushing leader

Ewers completed 21 of 34 passes (62 percent) for 331 yards. He also was the Dragons’ rushing leader, running 9 times for 119 yards.

The Dragon defense, meanwhile, couldn’t completely nullify the powerful Wildcat offense, but it made the stops it had to, forcing four turnovers and a couple of key 4^th-down stops that stymied Guyer drives.

After the Wildcats surged to a 14-0 lead in the opening period, the Dragon D kept Guyer’s heralded double-threat quarterback, Eli Stowers, in check during the decisive 2^nd and 3^rd periods. That allowed its offensive brethren, after shaking off a rocky start, to outscore the Wildcats 46-20 for the rest of the game.

Thirteen of those Guyer points came in a wild scoring spree late in the 4^th after Carroll had lengthened its lead to 39-21 and most of us had settled back in our seats to savor a hard-fought victory almost none of us dared predict.

 But the Wildcats enjoy the reputation of being a quick-scoring offense for a reason. In only 2 plays, Stowers marched his team into Dragon territory and tossed a 36-yard TD strike to Deuce Harman.

The following Dragon drive ended in an Ewers fumble – his third of the night. (Keep in mind, he's a soph. Besides, he fell on one). Two plays later, Stowers (19-28, 274 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT) scampered 41 yards to the end zone. His attempt to make a 2-point conversion failed, but in less than 2 minutes, he had reduced the Carroll lead to an uncomfortable 39-34 with 3:11 remaining.

That set up Ewers’ last heroics of the night. On the second play after kickoff, he whipped around the left end and outran Guyer defenders 70 yards for the game’s final score.

Prognosticators had predicted the Dragon-Wildcat clash would be a dogfight. Both teams expected it to be. Two undefeated district rivals, both ranked in MaxPreps’s Texas Top 10, playing for the de facto district title -- it had all the making of a classic.

Guyer, on the strength of Stowers and its stellar running back, Kaedric Cobb, was widely favored. The Wildcats, on consecutive weeks, had bested 5A state champion Aledo in a wild shootout and whipped always tough Cedar Hill. The Dragons, meanwhile, had faced a relatively unimpressive pre-district schedule.

Battle tested?

It was, so the story line went, the battle tested against the untested. So much for story lines.

While Ewers was dazzling, his spectacular receiving corps deserves much of the credit. Two of them scored multiple TDs last night.

John Manero led in receiving yardage, 5 catches for 104 yards. Wills Meyer followed, with 5 for 78, including scoring strikes of 15 yards (the Dragons’ first score) and 31 yards. Blake Smith (4-49) also scored twice, and Brady Boyd was a key target, nabbing 6 passes for 77 yards.

The combined play of Manero and Smith last night must be particularly galling for Guyer. Those two were the key elements in the trick double-pass play that sealed Carroll’s last-gasp 33-29 victory against the Wildcats last year.  With 6 ticks left on the clock and the score tied at 27-27, then quarterback Will Bowers pitched the ball to Manero, who then lofted it 23 yards to Smith in the end zone. Carroll bungled the 2-point PAT, and Guyer ran it back for an exciting but meaningless 2 more points. 

This year, Smith's first TD catch, a 9-yard toss with – get this – 6 seconds left in the half, sent the Dragons into the lead for the first time. They would never trail again. The A&M commit also made the first Carroll score of the 2nd half, an 18-yard TD catch set up by a successful 4^th-down stand by the Dragon D.

Worth mentioning, while credit is being doled out, is the play of freshman running back Owen Allen, who carried 15 times for 44 yards. Allen handled the rushing load for the Dragons with Kannon Kadi out for the year and Cade Wood still tender. Wood played a few downs last night, but still doesn’t appear to be back at full strength.

He’s a baller

Allen, however, is a baller, and it’s worth noting with delicious anticipation the Dragons’ baby-faced backfield with a sophomore under center and a freshman at running back.

A final word about the defense. It’s chockful of seniors and has been playing lights out all season. But last night was its moment of truth, and it passed the test.

It may seem strange to heap extravagant praise on a squad that allowed 34 points, but as noted before, Dragon defenders made key stops against Guyer's rampaging offense that gave their reeling offense time to regain its equilibrium.

Consider Cobb’s numbers, for instance. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he was limited to 84 yards on 21 rushes, mostly in the first half. He did score once in the second, but he wasn’t a factor in the Wildcats’ desperate closing flourishes.

Dragon linebacker Preston Forney, who made it into the Wildcat backfield so quickly on one play that he intercepted a ball Stowers was trying to pitch to his running back, said Carroll defenders worked hard to get ready for Guyer.

“It all comes down to tons of preparation,” he told Dragon Radio after the game. “Tons of preparation and tons of film work. We were going into the film room four or five times a day. It paid off.”

Head coach Riley Dodge, now in his second year as a head coach, told Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News that he recognized the importance of the win.

“We’ve got a long journey, but this was a huge step,” said Dodge, whose team has yet to lose a regular season game under his leadership. “We’re going to be everybody’s best shot each week, and we love that. We love being the target.”

The Carroll victory is particularly satisfying to Dragon Nation because it occurred in the glare of the national spotlight.

What it means

USA Today sportswriter Cam Smith said the game revealed three things:

n  Ewers’ stellar performance is going to attract a lot more attention to the youth, who already has fielded offers from 10 colleges.

“Ewers was too tough for a talented Guyer defense all night,” Smith wrote, “which underscores how bright his future may be, both at Carroll and eventually at the next level.”

n  Guyer accomplished its stated goal before the game – to get off to a quick start against the Dragons. But ultimately, the Carroll defense ruled.

n  Riley Dodge must be viewed in a different light after the victory over Guyer.

“It was the kind of win upon which legacies are sometimes made, or in Dodge’s case, remade,” Smith said.

Next up is winless Byron Nelson, which travels to Dragon Stadium next Friday. Despite their dismal record, the Bobcats have played some very close games this year so the Dragons would be well advised to keep on their toes. This could be a classic trap game.

But for today at least, they deserve to relish their achievement.

“I’m going to remember tonight and what we did here for the rest of my life,” Forney told a radio interviewer. “I’ll remember it until I’m 40, 50, 60 years old.”

Go Dragons!