MERKEL – The Early Longhorns tallied the game’s first 29 points, then held off a feverish comeback attempt by the Merkel Badgers for a 31-20 road victory in Week 4 gridiron action Friday night.
With their first victory away from home under first-year head coach Daniel Price, the Longhorns also evened their season record at 2-2, handing Merkel (2-2) a second straight loss in the process.
“We didn’t hesitate, we jumped in and played the type of football I knew we could play,” Price said. “We started fast, we played physical and we hit them in the mouth really hard early on. It’s fun to watch them grow week after week and then to start a game like I know we can, I think that shocked Merkel a little bit. I don’t know how many yards they had at halftime but it wasn’t many. We kind of dominated on both sides and played pretty well early.”
The Longhorns led 16-0 after one quarter and 29-0 at halftime. Merkel crept within 15 points, 29-14, in the third, but got no closer than nine points, 29-20, in the fourth.
Early churned out 359 yards of total offense, including 223 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Alex Jacobs led the way with 125 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries, Jaxyn Price chipped in 44 yards and a score on 13 rushes, Tre Beam finished with 31 yards on seven carries and Tucker Hale added 23 yards with a trip to the end zone on five rushes.
Through the air, Price connected on 10 of 16 passes for 121 yards with an interception – the lone Early turnover – while John-Stewart Gordon completed both his pass attempts for 15 yards. Caleb McCullough finished with three grabs for 12 yards, Tyson Tyler caught two for 45, Beam added two catches for 33 yards and Jacobs caught a pair covering 24 yards. Hayden Schroeder (9 yards), Gordon (8 yards), and Rylie Hill (4 yards) also caught one pass each.
The Longhorns allowed 214 total yards – 128 rushing and 86 passing – with one takeaway.
Jacobs opened the scoring with a 28-yard scoring sprint just three minutes into the game, then the Badgers committed a safety due to a high snap to the punter in the end zone. Price scored on a 4-yard run with just under five minutes left in the opening frame, staking the Longhorns to a 16-0 advantage.
In the second period, Hale scored on a 1-yard run and Jacobs added his second touchdown carry from 5 yards out, set up by a Jeremy Brown interception, to stretch Early’s lead to 29 points with just over three minutes left before intermission.
Merkel scored touchdowns on its first three drives after halftime – a 71-yard run by Isaac Sebastian, a 1-yard run by Joey Zink and a 7-yard toss from Zink to Jace Thompson.
“They had some special athletes that made a couple of big plays and we found ourselves in a game that was getting tight,” Price said. “Merkel went down and scored but we stopped the extra point and kept it a two-score game. We lined up for an onside kick and they kicked it over our heads to the 3 and we returned it to the 12. Then we went on a 6 1/2-minute drive and converted two third downs and a fourth down. We didn’t score but we made them use their timeouts. They got the ball back inside their own 20 with 1:50 and we had three sacks with one for a safety to score. We needed big plays at the end and the defense did it for us.”
Next week Early wraps up its pre-district schedule with its homecoming game against Grape Creek (1-3), which dropped a 24-8 home decision to Coleman Friday night.
“There are still things to clean up in the second half offensively, we have to fix some things if we want to be successful in our district, but I like where we’re at,” Price said.
