Friday Night Five: We look to East Texas, and scratch our heads

[caption id="attachment_26189" align="alignright" width="350"]Kilgore QB Buddy Jackson (Photo by John Murphy) Kilgore QB Buddy Jackson (Photo by John Murphy)[/caption] Don't let anyone tell you the district doldrums don't produce some stunners. There are some huge results in this mix, and it doesn't even include College Station's 23-14 win over rival A&M Consolidated, Brownsville Hanna's 19-16 win over Harlingen South, or Canadian's 18-17 win over Childress, to name a few. Game of the night: Kilgore 41, Carthage 34 It was barely two weeks ago when we thought we had a group of Carthage Bulldogs primed to steamroll their foes en route to a state title berth. As is often the case in East Texas, a wealth of good football manages to tip the sturdiest ships. Henderson drummed up a 36-28 win over Carthage last week, and Kilgore kept the trend going with a win this week. The two teams combined for 954 yards of offense, and it may turn out that come playoff time, the winner of the region will just have to out-gun everyone else. If you remember just a year ago, everyone in 9-4A suffered at least one loss, with Kilgore and Carthage at the top with just one loss, and Henderson down near the bottom with three. This year, the Lions look like the best of the bunch, but if we've learned anything over the last few years, it's that you simply can't predict what will happen when teams in this district clash. In the meantime, congratulations to Mike Wood and his team for a big-time district victory. Team on the riseBeeville Jones 42, Somerset 28 Look, we're not jumping a state title bandwagon, but the leap this group has made under Jerry Bomar is pretty dang impressive. They're averaging 49 points per game, and recorded this impressive win just a couple weeks after pushing Sinton to the brink. This is a really fun Trojans team. Team in the holeParis 16, Texarkana Liberty-Eylau 8 Things just never seem to get any easier for Steve Wells' bunch. Credit to the Leopards for playing a brutal pre-district schedule, and here's hoping things start clicking with North Lamar, Anna, Princeton and Ford remaining on the slate. Hats off to a Paris team up for the fight, pushing Liberty-Eylau, a 2015 state quarterfinalist, to 1-5 on the season. Five big-time resultsThe Woodlands 72, Beaumont West Brook 7 With each passing week, the Highlanders appear to be morphing from emerging threat to a favorite for a state title berth. They're winning games by an average of 28 points in a schedule that's included Katy, George Ranch, Lufkin and now West Brook. Laredo United South 44, Laredo United 35 Little brother wins! The Panthers are perennial second fiddle to the Longhorns, but not this year. Byron Nelson 21, Euless Trinity 20, OT This was by far the shock of the night in the DFW area. Trinity went from a sleeper pick to struggling with back-to-back losses to Southlake Carroll and now Byron Nelson. Clear Springs 23, Dickinson 7 Dickinson was off to a 5-0 start, and appeared to be in the driver's seat for a district title. Meanwhile, Clear Springs only loss was a narrow 28-24 result to a Pearland team that still had Connor Blumrick in the season opener. Keep an eye on the Chargers. Memphis 22, Wellington 15 We were on the verge of declaring the Rockets a major threat to the title hopes of other teams in 2A DII. Wellington still may be that, but Memphis served notice that a steady ground game and good defense could derail their opponents' high-flying attack. Eye-grabbing scoreline of the nightLeander Rouse 60, Georgetown 27 It seemed like Georgetown was on a collision course for a battle of unbeatens against Cedar Park. Instead, the Raiders put a hurting on the Eagles, and left the Timberwolves in control of the district (and pretty much all of 5A in Central Texas).