2009 Winter Edition: Games of the Year Candidates

When you have 16 weeks of play spread out over nearly 1,400 schools in five different 11-man classes ... you're going to have quite a few games to sort through. So when we put together our "Game of the Year" segment for the new 2009 Winter Edition, we had too many candidates to list. Here are some of the best games of 2008 that couldn't make it into the hard copy.

5A Game of the Year Candidates:> Week 1: Cedar Hill 34, Wichita Falls Rider 27
Down 20-0 at the half and facing one of DFW's best rushing offenses, Wichita Falls Rider scored 27 unanswered points -- all in the third quarter -- to take the lead heading into the final frame. But as is so often the case in large comebacks, Rider couldn't keep up its frenetic pace, and Cedar Hill scored twice in the fourth to put the game away for good.
> Week 4: Arlington 50, Arlington Lamar 40
The 2008 Peach Bowl -- the matchup between Arlington's Scott Peach and Lamar's Eddy Peach, Scott's father -- gave fans 90 combined points and a 283-yard rusher in Lamar's Ja'Terian Douglas. After Arlington scored the first ten points of the game, Douglas ran for six touchdowns to keep Lamar within striking distance of Arlington and QB Matt Joeckel.
> Week 12: Fort Bend Hightower 28, Galena Park North Shore 21
In a clash of two Houston-area super powers, Hightower jumped out to an early first quarter lead before North Shore stormed back in the final frame. Faced with elimination, Hurricane QB A.J. Highsmith snuck in from a yard out to give Hightower the game-winning lead with just 33 seconds left to play.