Coasting into the playoffs: Southlake Carroll 70, Saginaw Boswell 0

The Saginaw Boswell Tigers didn't put up much of a fight in the first round.

Befuddled and bedraggled

SOUTHLAKE – If you’re looking for an example of complete football domination, last night’s 6A Division II playoff contest between the rampaging Southlake Carroll Dragons and the befuddled and bedraggled Saginaw Boswell Pioneers will serve the purpose nicely.

The Dragons scored every time they touched the ball, smashing at will through the Boswell defense on the ground and in the air.

In the decisive 2^nd quarter, the Dragons, already leading 21-0, went on a 35-point scoring spree that crushed the spirit and broke the will of the Pioneers, sending them limping into halftime trailing 56-0.

They didn’t fare much better at the hands of Carroll’s backup players in the second half.

While the Dragon offense made mincemeat of the Pioneers, the Dragon D staged its second straight shutout.

It strangled the Boswell offense, limiting Pioneer quarterback Tye Renfro to 95 yards passing while snatching three of his passes. It also banished Boswell’s leading rusher, Colin Dixon, from the end zone. Dixon labored mightily all night, managing to gain 117 well-earned rushing yards to no useful result. Truth be told, most of his yardage came after Carroll had retired its starting defenders.

The Pioneers were hampered by costly mistakes generated by the chaos created by the Carroll D. One promising late Boswell drive ended when a Renfro pass was intercepted by Ethan Fisher in the end zone. A last-gasp Pioneer effort to get on the scoreboard failed when Boswell coughed up the ball near midfield and Dragon linebacker Hogan Bryan fell on it.

Low-key appraisal

As usual, head coach Riley Dodge was low key in his appraisal of the slaughter.

“We had a great week of practice,” Dodge told Fort Worth Star-Telegram sportswriter Mike Waters. “We came out early and attacked offensively. Our defense did a lot of great things. Just a good win for us.”

Quarterback Graham Knowles was poised and efficient behind center. He completed 9 of 15 passes for 329 yards and 3 touchdowns.

He also opened scoring for the Dragons with an 8-yard run that he had set up on the previous play by a 40-yard pass to junior RB Riley Wormsley.

Knowles, a Georgia Tech commit, immediately followed that success with TD passes to Clayton Wayland, the night’s leading receiver (5 for 135, 2 TDs), who snagged throws of 37 and 38 yards on back-to-back drives.

Wayland, in a post-game interview with the Star-T’s Waters, credited the win to “preparation and sacrifice.”

 “We talk about that all the time in practice,” Wayland told Waters. “That is what this program is all about.”

The Dragons were relentless against Boswell, overwhelming its defense and smothering its offense.
Less than a minute into the 2^nd half, sophomore WR Brock Boyd, drifting down the left sideline, made a spectacular one-handed catch before sailing out of bounds at the Boswell 20. From there, sophomore RB Davis Penn (5-58, 1 TD) ducked his head and plunged through the middle of the Pioneer front line, slicing easily through sluggish defenders and crossing the goal line untouched.

Boyd said “a great week of preparation” resulted in the runaway victory.

A great win

“Our execution was excellent,” he told the Star-T. “We have a lot of talented receivers. The offensive line did its job. Just a great win for us.”

The Dragons’ merciless 2^nd-quarter spree hit high gear when Carroll defenders intercepted Renfro on two consecutive drives, turning both into Carroll touchdowns.

Senior linebacker Eric Garza grabbed the first and sped 25 yards to the end zone. Three plays into the next Pioneer drive, senior linebacker Bridger Jense snared the other and returned it 22 yards to the Pioneer 11.

Wormsley bullied his way first to the 1-yard line and then across the goal. With more than 8 minutes left in the half, the Dragons led 42-0.

After a Pioneer punt, the Dragons set up shop on their 41. Four plays later, Knowles zipped a 45-yard dart to Boyd (3-64, 1 TD) in the end zone.

The Dragon D smothered the next Pioneer drive, and the Dragons, behind the dogged running of Wormsley, marched quickly to the Boswell 32. From there, Wormsley (8-79, 2 TDs) barreled through the Pioneer line and breezed into the end zone, ending a catastrophic first half for the pitiable Pioneers.

Halftime signaled the end of the night for Carroll starters, who turned things over to the action squad to finish off the dazed and confused Pioneers.

By evening’s end, virtually everybody got into the act.

Sophomore Angelo Renda took over from Knowles to run out the clock before halftime. The elusive, hard-charging Renda was the Dragons’ leading rusher, carrying the ball 5 times for 102 yards and making Carroll’s penultimate touchdown on a 5-yard jaunt in the 4^th.

First varsity TD

Third-string signal caller Carter Lind also saw playing time. He and senior Jake Erwin (9-53) put together the Dragons’ last drive of the night. But it was Jacob Montes who got the ball at the 31 and rumbled into the end zone for his first varsity touchdown. And in the playoffs, too!

Disaster scenes like the one on display last night in Dragon Stadium are not uncommon in the first round of the playoffs, where often the best teams deliberately are paired with much weaker ones.

It’s an inevitable result of the UIL’s policy of sending each district’s top four teams to the playoffs. That increases participation and broadens interest in the postseason, but it doesn’t do much for the quality of play in the first round.

Most teams – including the Dragons – don’t mind the easy pickings at the outset of a brutal playoff road. It gives them a chance to rest starters, polish plays and get their players mentally ready for the win-or-go-home ethos of the playoffs.

Sad to say, however, the fourth-best team in almost any district you can name – with few exceptions – probably don’t deserve a playoff spot.

In games like last night’s debacle, it’s the young men on the field who pay the price. I felt a pang of sympathy for the Boswell kids, who had to endure an embarrassing butt-kicking in front of family and friends.

Next team up

Next up for the Dragons are the Wolfforth Frenship Tigers. The area-round contest will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Abilene Christian University.

Wolfforth, located southwest of Lubbock in the Texas Panhandle – in other words in the big middle of nowhere – won a shootout last night against El Paso Eastwood, 87-58.

The Tigers and Dragons also met in the second round last year, when Frenship fell to Carroll 69-14 in a not very competitive game.

Eastwood, you’ll recall, opened the Dragon season back in August, losing to the Dragons 70-21. If it can score 58 points on Frenship, what might Knowles and company manage?

On the other hand, Tiger quarterback Hudson Hutcheson threw nine TD passes and gained more than 500 passing yards in the effort against Eastwood.

Reckon he can repeat the effort against the Dragon secondary? I doubt it.

Remember, Frenship also came into the 2022 game against Carroll boasting impressive offensive stats. But the Dragons quickly tamed Hutcheson and his two hotshot running backs, and Frenship learned that success on the dusty plains of West Texas doesn’t mean much when those teams travel to the DF-Dub.

Still, it’s dangerous to under-estimate your opponents in the playoffs. From this point on, there are few easy patsies left in the field.

Go Dragons!

Next up: Another second-round matchup with the Wolfforth Frenship Tigers.