SAUNDERS: Shining stars and stunners in bi-district round of six-man playoffs

Each week, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football six-man insider Leman Saunders offers his thoughts on the six-man weekend that was. -The biggest news was Whitharral pulling of a stunner against Motley County winning 70-38. It was a perfect storm for the Panthers as they have seemed to hit their stride at the right time and played excellent run stop defense against the run heavy Motley County squad. While it was a team effort, three players had huge games for the Panthers: Chris Albus gained 174 yards and scored three touchdowns on the ground and threw for another TD; Kody Gonzales added 117 yards rushing with four TDs. Brock Martin recorded a safety on defense and scored a TD rushing and ran a kickoff back for a score. Whitahrral will now face a bigger challenge in highly ranked Valley in their 2^nd round matchup. -The best game was also in the DII bracket as Oakwood, who were down by 18 in the third quarter, took a 54-50 lead early in the fourth quarter over Calvert and held on for the upset win. Calvert had two possessions in which to take the lead back and both times the Trojans drove into the redzone only to be shut down and forced to go four and out both time by the Oakwood defense. Ethan Edgemon scored three TDs for the Panthers, threw for another and came up with a key fumble recovery in the fourth quarter on defense. Defensively the Panthers were led by Bastion Pickens 17 tackles and Key’Undre Davis 13. -Jayton also had a huge win beating Highland 54-30. Tye Scogin was a workhorse with 30 carries and 213 yards and four TDs on the ground. He also passed for a touchdown and recorded 14 tackles on defense. -Despite the upsets in the opening round of the playoffs the top tier teams seemed to have no trouble in their Bi-District matchups: Division two Balmorhea, Milford, Richland Springs, Valley, Strawn, along with division one Borden County, Happy, Garden City, Union Hill, Jonesboro all won via the 45-point mercy rule. -McLean and Nazareth battled it out in a clash of highly ranked teams up in the Texas panhandle. It was a tight back and forth game for a while with McLean holding a slim 50-49 lead in the third quarter. However, the Tigers then scored six unanswered touchdowns, four by running back ben Crockett, pulling away for the 89-49 victory. Crockett had a banned night for the Tigers as he rushed for 419 yards and seven TDs on 26 carries, threw for a touchdown and led his team in tackles with nine. -Other gaudy stat lines of the week have to be the 406 yards and seven touchdowns rushing turned in by Sands’ Hunter Reese in the Mustangs 83-41 win over Grandfalls-Royalty and Coolidge’s star sophomore back Torrey Hoover also had a huge night racking up 527 yards of total offense (346 rushing, 181 passing) scoring six touchdowns (5 rushing, 1 KO return) and throwing for five more in their 89-63 win over Avalon.