Thursday Night Four: One big surprise to go with a few interesting results

[caption id="attachment_20416" align="alignright" width="200"]Photo by Andy Tolbert Photo by Andy Tolbert[/caption] For around 80 Texas High School football teams, the state playoffs started Thursday night. There were a few upsets, a couple more upset bids extinguished towards the end of the game and a few top contenders that looked the part. Here are the highlights from Thursday’s games. 1. The only game that took place in Class 6A-D1 was a Region IV clash between San Antonio O’Connor and Southwest. O’Connor escaped with a 24-21 victory despite Southwest building a first-half lead after scoring 21 points in the second quarter. O’Connor likely takes on Converse Judson in the bi-district round. In Class 6A-D2, Lake Travis cruised to a victory over Pflugerville. The Cavaliers will play the winner of Kingwood/Westfield in the bi-district round. Lake Travis showed why it is the top Class 6A threat from the Austin area in a 48-0 victory. Also in the bracket, Welasco East took a 21-20 win in Region IV. Maybe the biggest upset of the night came with Friendswood knocking off Fort Bend Hightower for the second consecutive postseason. Hightower entered the game undefeated. The now 7-4 Friendswood team will take on the winner of La Porte/Dawson next week. 2. In Class 5A, the favorites to win the titles in Division I and Division II raced past the bi-district round when Aledo and Cedar Park dominated opponents on Thursday night. Houston Stratford also easily won, setting up a possible matchup with Temple in the area round. Everman and Terrell also advanced in the Class 5A-D2 bracket, while South Oak Cliff knocked off Mansfield Timberview on a late field goal. 3. The biggest upset of the night nearly took place in Class 4A-D1 when Van nearly knocked off Texarkana Liberty-Eylau. Van made a big comeback against its ranked opponent, pulling within a touchdown late. All Liberty-Eylau had to do after recovering the onside kick was kneel the clock out. However, Liberty-Eylau ran a play and ended up fumbling out of the back of the end zone with around a minute left in the game to open the door for Van. Liberty-Eylau escaped, but it was a great showing from Van. Liberty-Eylau will play Sanger in the next round after Sanger outpaced Springtown. 4. Despite losing its quarterback in a special teams injury, Westwood nearly upset state-ranked East Chambers in the Class 3A bi-district round of the state playoffs. East Chambers won 15-14 to advance to the area round. East Chambers now awaits the winner of Grandview vs. Little River Academy.