***
LUBBOCK – After witnessing a 14-point second-quarter lead and the momentum vanish before halftime, the No. 8 Brownwood Lions regrouped at intermission and completely shut down the Lubbock Estacado Matadors over the final two quarters en route to a 35-14 victory Thursday night at Lowrey Field.
“(Estacado) went in with the momentum and we could hear them in the locker room, the coaches trying to get them to believe they could win,” said Lions sixth-year head coach Sammy Burnett, who now owns a 99-57 career record, including a 41-25 mark at Brownwood. “My response was ‘they’re over there preaching to their kids, trying to get them to find a way to win.’ I told our kids ‘you know you can win. You’re in a different boat. They may have the momentum but as soon as you take it from them you’ll dominate the second half,’ and that’s exactly what they did. They didn’t panic, we made adjustments and we just went out there and executed. We’ve put too much time into this to quit, to not play hard and to not believe in their coaches. They just did what we asked them to do, they played with great passion and they were physical.”
With the victory, Brownwood (8-1, 3-0) has secured at the very least a share of a second straight District 2-4A Division I championship, with the outright crown within reach in next week’s regular season finale.
Estacado (6-2, 1-1) was held 37 points below its season scoring average, 20 points below its previous low-point output in 2023, and 426 yards below its average yards per game.
The Lions defense yielded a mere 57 yards of total offense – 51 rushing on 15 carries and 6 through the air on 4 of 9 passing – and also forced a turnover that turned into points.
“I was really proud of them,” Burnett said of the defense. “I was scared when (Bobby) Ross went out, he was a little banged up and they put No. 6 (James Bozeman) and No. 11 (Cedric Ross) back there, who are very dynamic. Other than a couple plays the first half where we missed some tackles I thought our defense played well. They couldn’t throw the ball against us or run against us.”
Estacado scored on a 53-yard, six-play drive that knotted the score at 14 with 1:21 left in the first half, which followed a one-play, 3-yard drive that came on the heels of a 52-yard return of an offside kick by Xavier Lucio.
However, the Matadors’ other seven possessions resulted in six punts, one fumble lost and a grand total of 1 yard of offense.
“We practiced hard all week,” said linebacker Sam Kallman, the Lions’ leading tackler on the season. “We had to make a couple of changes at halftime but we tried to get our safeties to roll down quick and we just hustled to the ball, filled our gaps and made them go outside.”
Offensively, the Lions churned out 319 yards of total offense behind the play of Quinten McCarty, Cole Miller, Davis Le, Aidan Packheiser and Logan Knight up front, including 287 rushing yards on 52 carries.
Quarterback Ike Hall shouldered the load with 180 yards and four touchdowns on 28 carries, Levi Pearson chipped in 98 yards on 19 rushes, and Jaylan Brown added 19 yards on the ground and a touchdown on five carries.
“He’s a captain and I demand the best out of him all the time and I demand success,” Burnett said of Hall. “He has to play at a different level, he has to carry the team and once he does that and they start keying on him, it opens up other opportunities. Levi and Jaylan also ran the ball well, but we go as Ike goes.”
The Lions called 27 rushing plays out of their 30 second-half snaps and amassed 155 yards, grinding out 5.7 yards per carry over the final two quarters.
“Offensively we busted some assignments up front and some protections in the first half,” Burnett said. “Some of the things they were doing to us, we went in at halftime and got in formations where they could not continue to do what they were doing in the first half which allowed us to run the ball. After that, they couldn’t stop us.”
After Bozeman slipped on the opening kick of the second half and tumbled down at the Estacado 9, the Lions forced a three-and-out. Brownwood then marched 49 yards in just three plays – all Hall rushes – to regain a 21-14 edge on a 5-yard carry just 1:55 into the third quarter. Hall’s 38-yard scramble on the second play moved the Lions into goal-to-go territory.
Estacado’s very next play resulted in a fumble by Cedric Ross that Kallman pounced on at the Matador 30. Six plays later, with 6:37 left in the third period, the Lions were back in the end zone on a 6-yard run by Hall and Brownwood had re-established its two-touchdown edge, 28-14.
“We started off with a three-and-out which was huge,” Burnett said. “Then offensively we scored, got the turnover and scored again, and after that we weren’t really worrying about points, but managing the clock and getting to the end of the game.”
The Matadors’ third possession of the second half ended with another three-and-out, and Brownwood followed with an 11-play, 56-yard touchdown drive that chewed 6:32 off the clock and culminated with a 2-yard plunge into the end zone by Hall with 10 minutes to go.
The drive was extended by an unsportsmanlike conduct foul against Estacado – one of nine flags for 83 yards against the Matadors – after Hall was sacked on a third-and-10 at the Brownwood 44.
“We came out a little slow and saw a lot of the stuff we started off with wasn’t working,” Hall said. “We went into the half and we have a set where we block everybody in the box and I just have to make one person miss. That’s how we attacked them the whole second half and they couldn’t stop us.”
What turned out to be the Matadors’ final drive followed with their third three-and-out of the half, and the Lions were then able to run the final 8:47 off the clock to secure the win. Over the last 16:32 of the contest, Estacado snapped the ball just four times as the Matadors did not tally a first down after halftime and mustered just 9 yards of total offense over the last two quarters.
Brownwood dodged a first-half bullet as Deeondric Green intercepted Hall on the Lions’ second possession and returned the ball near the red zone, to the 25. But Estacado wound up losing 20 yards on the possession and punted the ball away.
The Lions responded with their first touchdown drive, moving 80 yards in four plays – sparked a 49-yard gallop by Pearson, coupled with a face mask penalty – as Hall put the final touches on the march with a 9-yard touchdown run.
Brownwood’s next possession was its longest in terms of snaps, a 13-play, 80-yard journey that ate 4:27 off the clock and ended with a 1-yard touchdown run by Brown at the 6:56 mark of the second quarter for a 14-0 edge.
Earlier in the possession, Junior Martinez had booted a 30-yard field goal, but Estacado was called for a personal foul for leaping over the offensive line on the kick. The Lions opted to take the field goal off the board, the ball was moved to the Matador 11 and two plays later Brownwood reached the end zone.
The onside kick followed which the Matadors returned to the Brownwood 3, and Bozeman scored on the next play. Then, with 1:21 left in the first half, Cedric Ross – who rushed for 53 yards on just four carries – scored on a 15-yard scamper to even the score. But the Matadors were unable to duplicate their good fortunes in the second half.
“We went in at halftime and told them it was the first time all year we’d lost the special teams phase of the game and we can’t do that,” Burnett said. “And then we woke up. We’d been behind after the first half and we’ve led after the first half, but we haven’t been tied after one half. We just told them to come out and play two quarters and see who wants it the most and our kids came out and dominated.”
Next week, the Lions wrap up the regular season at Gordon Wood Stadium at 7 p.m. Friday against Andrews (4-4, 1-1) – which has its district bye this week. Brownwood’s bye falls in Week 11, the night of Friday, Nov. 3, with an outright district championship possibly in tow.
“The team we face next week is going to come out try and knock us off the hill, so you never know,” Burnett said. “We just have to do what we do and get better next week. We have to be better next week than we were this week, and if we do that we’ll be right where we want to be.”
***
Lions 35, Lubbock Estacado 14
SCORE BY QUARTERS
| Brownwood | 7 | 7 | 14 | 7 | – 35 |
| Estacado | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | – 14 |
***
SCORING SUMMARY
B: Ike Hall 9 run (Junior Martinez kick), 2:13, 1st
B: Jaylan Brown 1 run (Martinez kick), 6:56, 2nd
E: James Bozeman 3 run (Luis Gomez kick), 6:42, 2nd
E: Cedric Ross 15 run (Gomez kick), 1:21, 2nd
B: Hall 5 run (Martinez kick), 10:05, 3rd
B: Hall 6 run (Martinez kick), 6:37, 3rd
B: Hall 2 run (kick blocked, 1-point safety), 10:00, 4th
***
| TEAM STATS | B | E |
| First Downs | 23 | 4 |
| Total Offense | 319 | 57 |
| Rushes-Yards | 52-287 | 15-51 |
| Passing Yards | 32 | 6 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 5-8-1 | 4-9-0 |
| Fumbles Lost | 0 | 1 |
| Penalties-Yards | 5-25 | 9-83 |
| Punts-Average | 2-40.0 | 6-40.6 |
***
PLAYER STATS
RUSHING: B – Ike Hall 28-180, 4 TDs; Levi Pearson 19-89; Jaylan Brown 5-19, TD. E – Cedric Ross 4-53, TD; James Bozeman 4-13, TD; Bobby Ross 2-3; DJ Johnson 5-(-18).
PASSING: B – Hall 5-8-1-32. E – Johnson 4-9-0-6.
RECEIVING: B – Aaron Edmonds 4-24; Stone Ratliff 1-8. E – William Blaylock 2-5; Cedric Ross 1-5; Bozeman 1-(-4).
KICKING: B – Junior Martinez 4 of 5 PATs, 1 blocked. 0 of 0 FG.
2 punts, 80 yards, 40.0 average, long of 50.
