Upon further review: Looking back at a wild opening playoff weekend

[caption id="attachment_20580" align="alignright" width="234"]Photo by Gary Sanderson Photo by Gary Sanderson[/caption] The Texas high school playoffs kicked off over the weekend with a bi-district round that didn’t disappoint across the state. The playoff field was cut in half across all classifications over three days’ worth of exciting and surprising action. State champions fall Three 11-man state champions from the 2014 season made their exit this year in the bi-district round of the state playoffs. Cedar Hill, the two-time defending Class 6A-D2 state champions, lost to Southlake Carroll. It was an unfortunate draw for Cedar Hill since Southlake Carroll was allowed to host the game and have a unique home-field advantage for a playoff game. Not many places in Texas high school football create a true home-field advantage like Southlake Carroll enjoys on Friday nights. Ennis also fell in a one-point game to Hallsville. Ennis won the Class 5A-D2 championship in 2014 with a thrilling victory over Cedar Park, but Hallsville was able to pull out the upset against an Ennis team that never quite got on track this season. It was Hallsville’s first playoff victory since beating Palestine in 2003. Upsets galore The fact that a couple of state champions fell weren’t the only upsets over the weekend. South Grand Prairie beat Euless Trinity to advance to the area round of the state playoffs. A field goal as time expired ruined the Trojans’ chance to make a run at a Class 6A title. It wasn’t the typical loaded Euless Trinity squad in 2015, so this upset wasn’t as big as the names on the front of the jersey would indicate, but it was still a big loss for one of DFW’s most prominent programs. Mart losing to Tolar in the Class 2A-D1 bi-district round was the shock of the small classifications, but only because Gilmer found a way to escape against Texarkana Pleasant Grove. The Buckeyes are another defending state champion, but Gilmer and first-year head coach Matt Turner escaped the same fate as Cedar Hill and Ennis. Area round excitement The bi-district round didn’t disappoint in the slightest, but the area round should provide even more excitement, especially in the smaller classifications where district champions get to face off against fourth-place finishers in the bi-district round. We’ll start to see more matchups between top-ranked teams in the state as we creep closer and closer to the state championships in Houston.