Nothing to worry about
FLOWER MOUND – Southlake Carroll head coach Riley Dodge –
now in his fifth year leading the storied Dragon football program – says one of
the things he likes about his players this year is their patience.
“They don’t get rattled when things don’t go as planned.
They don’t panic. They remember what they’ve learned in practice, and they get it
done,” he told Dragon Radio’s Chuck Kelly after last night’s victory over the
Flower Mound Marcus Marauders.
I guess you can trust Dodge to know what he’s talking about.
After all, he’s only lost one regular season game since he got the top job in
Southlake. And everyone in Dragon Nation knows – with the certainty of a
mother’s love – that his kids would run through a wall for him. Or, as they
demonstrated last night, run through a highly experienced, thoroughly capable, rough-and-tumble
defensive line that returned every starting member from Marcus’ playoff run
last year.
Put down the teacups
So when the Dragons
managed only five measly yards in their first eight plays last night, nobody in
the visitors section of Marauders Stadium wet their pants. Oh, one or two of us
may – or may not – have swallowed the lumps forming in our throats. Mostly, we
sat back and waited for Riley and his boys to put down their teacups and demonstrate
to their Flower Mound hosts just how rude and disruptive a bunch of guests they
could be.
And that’s just what they did.
In handing the Marauders their second straight defeat, Carroll
badly punished, in the air and on the ground, Marcus’ heralded defense – you
know, the one with all the returning starters. Dragon running back Owen Allen rolled
to 213 rushing yards and two touchdowns before Carroll showed its rivals mercy and finally granted him a well-earned breather.
It was Allen’s driving fury that finally jolted the sluggish
Dragons into action when he barreled his way through the Marauder line and outran
the secondary in a 40-yard footrace to the end zone halfway through the 1st
quarter.
His second score, a 4-yard plunge seconds before the end of
the 1st half, handed Carroll a 14-point lead that iced the game. Later
in the second, he put a definitive punctuation mark on his performance by
forging 56 yards to set up his team’s final TD – a 28-yard reception by leading
receiver Jacob Jordan.
Roaming the field
Meanwhile, senior quarterback Kaden Anderson (14-20, 210) roamed
the field as if he owned the place. Upon reflection, I guess you’d have to say
he did.
Anderson threw for three touchdowns – all to Jordan (5-97), two
for 30 yards and that final 28-yarder. As he did last week in the Dragons’
victory over El Paso Eastwood, Anderson liberally distributed the ball to his
voracious receiving corps, including key passes to Clayton Wayland (3-54),
Caden Jackson (3-31) and the just-gimme-the-damn-ball Allen (2-27).
Before the Carroll D demolished it, Marcus’ offense enjoyed
a smash-mouth reputation for its four-man rushing rotation and for its lethal
combo of junior quarterback Cole Welliver, a 6-6, 200-pound giant with a big
arm and enviable accuracy, and senior Ashton Cozart, his four-star receiver.
The Dragon D, already playing with the intensity and timing
it usually doesn’t develop until late in the season, shut down the Marcus
running game, allowing it only an embarrassing 15 total rushing yards. And it
removed the Welliver-Cozart connection as a factor in the game, sacking
Welliver four times and limiting the pair to a single spectacular play – a 90-yard
pass reception that handed the struggling Marauders with their only score of
the night.
Carroll’s defensive domination came into sharp focus in the
opening moments of the last quarter. Guarding a comfortable 35-7 lead, it remained
wary of Marcus’ as-yet-unrealized explosive potential to score quickly.
After the Dragons fielded a punt at their 43, the normally sure-handed
Anderson fumbled. Marauder lineman Luke Shankel quickly snatched up the ball and
scrambled to the Dragon red zone before Caden Jackson dragged him down.
Line in the turf
A pair of 15-yard penalties pushed Marcus to its own 34, but
a couple of Welliver passes brought the Marauders back to the Dragon 3. That’s
where the Dragon D-line drew a figurative line in the turf, blocking any Marcus
advance on two successful plays.
Facing a last-gasp 4th down at the 4, Welliver
arced a ball along the right side of the end zone, connecting with a leaping receiver.
As the Marcus player desperately tried to stay in bounds, a Dragon defender
(whose name I didn’t get, dammit) pushed him across the line before his toes
touched the round. Threat over.
But the game wasn’t. With more than 10 minutes left to play,
Carroll proceeded slowly, methodically, inexorably to drive the length of the
field, eating up yardage and clock. Anderson rifled passes to Wayland while behemoths
of the Carroll O-line punched holes in the exhausted Marcus front for Allen and
backup Todd Mallory to run through.
Master class
Radio color commentator David Stoltzman watched that final
drive in admiration.
“You’re watching a master class in clock management,” he
told his listeners.
Dodge, who had kept his starters in until almost the very
end, eased off the pedal as the Dragons neared the end zone and the clock ticked
down. The drive – and scoring for the night – ended 9:45 minutes after it
started when Tyler White booted a 26-yard field goal.
Dodge told The Dallas Morning News after the game that
his squad hadn’t just beat down a bunch of cream puffs.
“That’s a good
team that is going to have a good season and make some noise,” he said of Marcus.
“It wasn’t always perfect for us tonight, but I like the way we’ve responded.”
For his part, Marcus head coach Kevin Atkinson offered no
excuses.
“We got our
butts kicked by a good team tonight,” he told Star Local Media website. “But
there is an old saying that you get better as you play and against tougher
competition. And we must get better.”
They will. Marcus
is a proud program, its players well coached and disciplined. They played hard
last night, even after the game got away from them. And while Dodge subscribes
to his father’s philosophy of “killing the will” of an opponent, he had no
stomach for running up the score against a team in which he once served as an
assistant coach.
A sad side note to the Marcus contest: In the pregame runup
to the game, Dragon Radio commentators discussed Atkinson’s health problems. The
coach is suffering from what was described at the early stages of Parkinson’s
disease. Best wishes to Atkinson and his family as he battles this implacable
disease with courage and grace. By all accounts, he is a good man and a good
coach, just the type of guy to whom you’d trust the safety and well-being of
your sons.
Next up: Cedar Hill
The Dragons have started the season with two solid wins
against quality opponents. Their evenly balanced offense is generating sparks
and power, thanks to stellar play by Anderson and Allen. At the same time,
their defense has jelled quickly into an effective and stubborn unit.
They’ll spend the week preparing for their Friday encounter
in Dragon Stadium with the Cedar Hill Longhorns. The Longhorns, normally a
powerhouse, have stumbled in the opening stanza of the 2022 season.
They fell to Rockwall 34-12 in the season opener, then got
battered 44-6 by Arlington Martin last night. The Horns aren’t accustomed to
such rough treatment, and they’ll arrive itching to take out their frustrations
on the Dragons’ home turf.
Good luck with that. Carroll doesn’t take kindly to any
threat to its practically pristine record at home. At the same time, while Cedar
Hill may not be the bullying horde of old, the Dragons best come prepared for a
dog fight. After all, they tend to bring out the worst – and the best – in
their opponents.
Go Dragons!
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