A grim, smashmouth struggle
BEDFORD – History tells us that any time Euless
Trinity and Southlake Carroll meet, it frequently results in high school gridiron
gold, and last night’s District 4-6A clash at venerable Pennington Stadium was
no exception.
The Trojans gave their Dragon neighbors – the two
schools are located only 10 miles apart – almost more than they could handle as
the two squads waged a grim, smashmouth back-and-forth struggle in the second
half of last night’s contest.
Led by dual-threat quarterback TJ Tupou, the Trojans put
on an offensive fireworks display that had the Dragons gasping for breath as
they hung desperately to a single-score lead until the final buzzer.
If the Dragons weren’t loaded with an equally
explosive offensive arsenal themselves, and if they hadn’t managed to carve out
a beefy 35-14 halftime lead, the evening might have ended badly for the
Southlake heroes.
As it was, Trojan runners scoured the porous Carroll
offense – undersized as always – and Trojan receivers brushed aside the Dragon
secondary to keep Trinity not only competitive, but within grasp of victory
until the last seconds of the game.
In the end, it came down to a single play as the clock
ticked inexorably to zero. But plenty of drama preceded it.
Cutting the lead
The Trojans quickly took charge in the second half. They
ended a 62-yard drive with Michael Saafi’s 10-yard TD run that cut the Dragon
lead to 35-20 (they missed the PAT).
After forcing Carroll to punt on the next drive, Trinity
then launched an 84-yard drive that featured Lukas Sanchez’s 47-yard reception
of a Tupou pass and culminated in Tupou’s 1-yard TD sprint. That cut the Dragon
lead to 35-27.
Then both teams staged a dramatic, high-stakes series
of tit-for-tat scoring drives that kept Dragonheads glued to their seats
instead of making their usual exodus after halftime.
Four-star Dragon running back Riley Wormley caught an
Angelo Renda pass and darted 35 yards to widen the Dragon lead to 42-27. The
Trojans quickly responded when running JT Harris finished a 58-yard Trinity
drive with a 9-yard dash that made it 42-34.
Next up, Renda (28-36, 376 yards) tossed a short pass
to Luc Jaquemard, who crossed the field diagonally on his way to a 46-yard TD.
Score: 49-34. Seven plays later, Trinity made it 49-41 when Tupou darted 2
yards to paydirt.
Renda, who completed TD passes to five separate
receivers, then engineered an 80-yard drive that culminated in a 5-yard spiral that
hit sophomore receiver Blake Gunter in the right corner of the endzone. That handed
Carroll a 56-41 lead with less than 5 minutes on the clock. Tupou then went
into action and led his Trojans 75 yards to the Dragon 3. From there, Harris
took in his second TD of the night and brought the Trojans to 56-48, with 3
minutes until the end.
Onside kick
At that point, Trinity tried an onside kick –
emulating perhaps the three onside kicks the Dragons staged in the first half,
two of which they recovered. Carroll foiled Trojan plans by falling on the ball
at the Dragon 48, but the Trojan defense stopped Renda and company cold.
A Dragon punt set Trinity up at its 30, and it quickly
drove to the Dragon 41. Now facing 4th-and-3, Tupou dropped back to
pass.
For the entire half, Trinity had been able to make
short yardage when necessary. Moreover, Tupou had been scary accurate,
completing 87 percent of his passes. The inevitability of a first down had Trojan
fans on their feet, cheering wildly.
With plenty of time, Tupou zipped the ball to a
receiver moving through the wide-open Dragon backfield. His ball sank low and
hit the turf, well short of his target. And with a shocking
suddenness, the moment of truth had come -- and gone.
With less than a minute and a half left, Renda took a
knee twice, and it was finally, mercifully over.
You could almost hear the sigh of relief exhaled by a Dragon
crowd worn out by the seesaw battle that had raged in front of them for half
the game.
One thing is clear from last night’s matchup. The
Dragon D needs work. True, it was facing one of the area’s top offensive teams,
but if Carroll has any ambitions in the playoffs – and it does, oh, yes, indeed
it does – it must shore up its defenses.
Trinity was averaging just under 300 total yards a
game before last night. It rolled to 558 against Southlake. As noted above,
Tupou was extremely accurate in the air, even though he couldn’t match Renda’s
output in yardage or points. He was particularly adept at mining sideline
routes.
On the ground, the Trojans outpaced the Dragons, 291
yards to 204. Tupou scored three times, ending long drives with short bursts
across the line. Harris was the Trojans’ leading scorer, rushing 15 times for
113 yards and two scores. Tupou rolled to 64 yards on 10 carries, and Saafi had
6 for 45. Trinity’s star running back Josh Bell could manage only 41 yards in
11 tries.
Shining brightest
As for Southlake, Wormley, once again, shined
brightest in the Carroll constellation. He also was the night’s leading rusher,
rolling to 181 yards and two TDs on 15 attempts.
He scored the Dragons’ first TD on its initial drive, but
the real crowd-pleaser came later, early in the 2nd quarter. Following
Wormley’s TD run and a second by his running partner, Davis Penn, Trinity’s
Tupou responded with a 51-yard drive that finally got the Trojans on the
scoreboard.
A few seconds later, after taking the handoff on the first
play of the Dragons’ next series, Wormley burst untouched through the Trinity
line and sprinted 75 yards to the endzone, sending the football parents I was
seated near into paroxysms of delight.
And as if that weren’t enough, Wormley also scored in
the air, giving Dragonheads a few tense moments in the process.
With Carroll clinging to a 35-27 lead late in the 3rd
quarter, Wormley grabbed a 35-yard aerial from Renda, taking a jarring hit in the
process. But he shook off the collision and raced to the endzone, then sank to
his knees, his helmeted head on the turf.
Thankfully, he sprang to his feet a few moments later and
ran off the field, allowing the visitor’s side of Pennington Stadium to start
breathing again.
Renda was superb, guiding an offense that kept the
surging Trojans at bay with poise and determination. His leading receiver, junior
Brock Boyd, nabbed 11 catches for 135 yards and 1 touchdown.
Boyd, who like every Dragon knows the storied history
between Southlake and Euless, said last night’s confrontation should be viewed
as a learning experience.
“We know what we’re good at, and tonight pointed out
what we struggled at, and it’s ultimately just getting back to the meeting room
and just improving on the little things,” Boyd told The Dallas Morning News’
Robert Harrod Jr.
Savoring victory
Southlake traveled to Pennington last night still
savoring its decisive 33-21 victory last week against what everyone expected would
be their most serious district challenger, the Byron Nelson Bobcats.
But Trinity sought desperately to ruin the grand Dragon
parade through 4-6A, and it damned near did it.
Carroll head coach Riley Dodge acknowledged that
playing the Trojans is never a walk in the park.
“It was really stressful,” Dodge told the Fort
Worth Star Telegram’s Charles Baggarly after the game. “But it was a
quality win versus a really good football team. We knew we had a challenge
defensively with their offense, and it obviously showed up on the scoreboard.
We knew it was gonna possibly be a shootout tonight.”
To the DMN’s Harrod, he was more blunt.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way to get the win,”
Dodge said.
Next week, the Dragons host Keller Timber Creek in the
Homecoming game at Dragon Stadium. After the exertions of the last two weeks,
Carroll might be expected to feel a bit of a breather is in order. But Dodge dismissed
the thought.
“We just played two big games, but we have so much to
improve on,” he told Harrod. “There’s so much to improve on and clean up, and
we’ve got to continue to get better.”
Go Dragons!
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