Down and out: Duncanville 35, Southlake Carroll 9

Duncanville proved to one and all who was the better team.
Revenge sought, revenge gained

The Duncanville Panthers’ smash-mouth, take-no-prisoners running back, Malachi Medlock, said last week that his team wanted revenge for the Southlake Carroll Dragons’ defeat of the Panthers in last year’s semifinal round of the 6A Division I playoffs.

And oh brother, they got it. Did they ever.

From the opening kickoff to the final kneel-down, Duncanville left no doubt about who was the best football team, demonstrating its superiority in every single phase of the game.

From the Panthers’ standpoint, I suppose the punishment fit the crime.

 Last season’s 34-27 defeat spoiled the Panthers’ fervent hopes for a return to the state finals for the third year in a row. Carroll unleashed its sophomore running back, Owen Allen, who rushed for more than 200 yards and a couple of touchdowns in guiding the Dragons to the infamous Dodge Bowl in the finals.

If revenge is sweet, then the Panthers are riding on a real sugar high.

Ponder this: In the first quarter, after three possessions, the Dragons had 2 rushing yards and negative passing yards. I didn’t think such a thing was possible.

Final statistics weren’t much better. The Dragons’ total rushing yards for the night were only 28 after you counted yards lost on quarterback sacks.

How bad was it?

Want to know how bad things really were for the beleaguered Dragons? Look no farther than this sequence of events that occurred after the Panthers put the game away with their fourth TD, a keeper by quarterback Solomon James, who accounted for all four of Duncanville’s offensive TDs.

During the very next series, Dragon quarterback Kaden Anderson hefted a 53-yard pass to Landon Samson, who carried it to the Panther 26. That represented, halfway through the 3^rd quarter, the first signs of life in the moribund Carroll offense.

A pass interference call against Duncanville pushed the ball to the 11. An Anderson pass to R.J. Maryland in the end zone fell incomplete. Yet another pass interference call by the Panthers moved the ball to the 2.

A Dragon false start, a recurring problem all night, put the ball at the 7. Three plays later, Carroll had traveled no further than the 3, where an Anderson dart toward the end zone was intercepted at the 2 by Panther Kadavion Dotson-Walker.

The Dragon defense managed to hold the Panthers to a 3-and-out, forcing a punt for the first time in the game, but a roughing-the-passer call brought the ball to the 17. On the next play, James threw an 83-yard pass to 15-year-old freshman receiver Dakorien Moore to finish Duncanville’s scoring spree.

James was perfect on13 receptions for 164 yards, passing for 3 TDs and rushing for another.

Too little, too late, on Carroll’s next series, a 38-yard run by James Lehman, set the Dragons up at the Panther 2, from where the sophomore ran in the Dragons’ only touchdown of the night. Added to Tyler White’s earlier 46-yard field goal, it offered a brief and bittersweet uptick of emotion among the Dragon faithful.

But mostly, the thrills and chills were provided by James and his rampaging Panthers. Medlock, who 24 times for143 yards, made a mockery of one of the best defensive units in Southlake Carroll history by tearing through the line like it was a soggy paper sack. He tacked on yards after initial contact, heedless of the Dragons clinging to him like lampreys.

The debacle to come

As for the Duncanville defense, it signaled the debacle to come five plays into the Dragons’ first drive, which drew three procedure calls against Carroll. Then disaster struck. The Panthers’ 5-star senior defensive lineman, Omari Abor, stripped Anderson of the ball, snatched it up and ran 17 yards for a touchdown. He was in Anderson’s face all night.

The Panther D pounced on Allen, who had run roughshod over them last season, eliminating him as a factor in last night’s contest. He rushed for only 69 yards on 15 carries.

The Panther secondary similarly disrupted the Dragon aerial attack. Anderson gained 212 yards in completing 15 of 25 passes. But he and two leading receivers, Samson (3 for 109) and Maryland (3 for 61), largely were rendered irrelevant.

Dragon quarterbacks have been sacked only 19 times this entire season. Duncanville accounted for six of them last night.

Riley Dodge was visibly irritated on the sideline by the procedural errors of his offensive line, which seemed always to occur at the most dreadful moments. He was blunt in his assessment of the takedown.

“We got beat by a good football team,” he told Dragon Radio. “We administered some self-inflicted wounds that are uncharacteristic of us as a team. You can’t do that against a team of that caliber and expect to win. They’re got some dudes over there.”

Thankfully, it’s rare that a Southlake team gets humbled in the manner that occurred last night in McKinney ISD stadium. Interestingly, the last time it happened also was at the hands of the Panthers, who disgraced the Dragons 51-7 in the 2018 playoffs.

Duncanville made it to the finals that year, where it lost a real heart-breaker to the Galena Park North Shore Mustangs when the Mustang quarterback completed a Hail Mary pass to the end zone as the clock expired.

A bad way to lose

It easily was the most thrilling finale to a high school state title game. But I can’t imagine a worst way to lose, can you?

Now, Duncanville, who hasn’t won a state championship since 1998, will have a chance to avenge that defeat – and a second one at the hands of the Mustangs in 2019 – when it meets North Shore next Saturday in the 2021 finals at AT&T Stadium. It should be one hell of a game.

For the Dragons, there will be Christmas shopping and fellowship with family and friends as the sting of last night’s defeat slowly fades.

It shouldn’t be forgotten, in the misery of a painful shellacking, that this team accomplished two of its preseason goals: winning a district championship and playing until after Thanksgiving.

True enough, it did not win the final, and most important, goal – a state title has eluded the Dragons once more. But who said a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?

There is always next year, and time enough to dream big dreams and pursue important goals. For now, I wish you all the happiest of holidays and a most happy and prosperous New Year.

Go Dragons!