Quarterback Ike Hall (7) hurls a 29-yard touchdown pass to Morsello Hooker (12) on the first play of the second quarter.
ABILENE – During sixth-year head coach Sammy Burnett’s emotional postgame talk after Friday night’s season opener, he addressed the Brownwood Lions as “The Mighty 33.”
Facing a Class 5A Division II Abilene Wylie Bulldogs squad that reached the regional championship round of the playoffs last year, had won the last three games against Brownwood, boasted a 74-player roster – more than double the 33 Lions that took the field – and was anywhere from a 7- to 24-point favorite, the deck appeared stacked against the maroon and white.
But an offense that returned just one starter from last’s year regional semifinal squad was able to produce five touchdowns, and a veteran defensive unit frustrated the host Bulldogs throughout the night as Brownwood began the 2023 football campaign with a commanding 35-21 road victory over Wylie.
“This reinforces all the hard work since last December that our guys have put in and what we preached to them that if you do the work and prepare for the test when you go out and take the test you’re going to be confident and good things are going to happen,” Burnett said. “And when that happens, it’s great for our kids because they listen to you more and they’re willing to embrace the day in and day out grind that they have to go through every week.”
The Lions finished with 332 yards of total offense – 247 on the ground and 85 through the air – with a pair of turnovers, while the Bulldogs were limited to 320 yards – a mere 78 rushing on 32 carries to go with 242 yards passing, but with a pair of interceptions.
Quarterback Ike Hall – the only offensive starter back from 2022 – led the charge offensively for the Lions with 168 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns on the ground, while completing 8 of 15 passes for 85 yards with a scoring toss and an interception.
“We can still do what we did last year,” Hall said, referring to an offense that averaged 40 points per game. “Nobody expected us to do what we did today, but we came out and did it. The chemistry’s there and we played good. The offense came out and did their best from first whistle to the last whistle from the O line’s blocking to receivers running the right routes, we looked good.”
Hall’s 66-yard touchdown gallop sealed the victory for the Lions (1-0) after they witnessed a 21-point fourth quarter cushion crumble to seven points after Kenny Scott scooped up a fumble and returned it 40 yards for a touchdown at the 4:37 mark.
Facing a second-and-6 from the Brownwood own 34 with 3:40 remaining, Hall kept the ball on a zone read and outran the Wylie (0-1) defense to the end zone, ruining the Bulldogs’ hopes of completing an improbable comeback.
“No. 1 it’s a great play call by (offensive coordinator) Coach (Dex) Dennard and for Ike to carry it out,” Burnett said. “He’s a captain, he’s our leader on offense and he’s expected to make plays like that. He expects it out of himself, we expect it as coaches and his teammates expect it. He’s a brilliant young man with a God given ability and lots of talent and he displayed on that run and it couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Hall said of his final score, “We had been handing the ball off, running the clock and I knew sooner or later they would start biting on the running back. When they did it, I pulled it and house.”
Defensively, the Lions had limited Wylie to just one touchdown until 5:46 remained in the game, as Braden Regala caught a 14-yard scoring toss from Keegan Anderson to trim Brownwood’s lead to 28-14. After recovering an onside kick, however, Anderson’s next pass attempt was picked off by Steve Ramirez as the Lions created the first of their two takeaways. Morsello Hooker also intercepted a pass in the end zone on the final snap.
“That shows the defense’s mentality and they know right now the weight’s on their shoulders,” Burnett said of a unit that finished with five sacks and five tackles behind the line of scrimmage. “We’ve got to be strong defensively, defense wins championships and we played with a great resolve. We mixed people in and out, everybody went in and did their job and they played as a unit. We missed some tackles early but fixed that and got better and stronger as the game went on. They did a phenomenal job.”
Leading 14-7 at halftime, the Lions kicked to Wylie to start the second half and following completions of 37 yards to Brenden Underwood and 36 yards to Regala by Bear Meng, the Bulldogs had moved the ball to the Lion 15. Four consecutive runs play followed, however, and Brownwood stuffed Wylie on the 6, forcing a turnover on downs and maintaining the lead.
“We did really good on the runs, we did a good job sealing all the gaps,” said middle linebacker Sam Kallman, who led the team with 18 tackles. “Later in the game we started boxing up the passes. We just tried to squeeze it as much as possible in the middle and make them bounce out and force them to run sideways so they couldn’t get many yards.”
Burnett added, “That’s our bend but don’t break mentality. We don’t care where we’re playing on the field, you have to play the next play. You have to understand people are going to have success against you sometime, but it’s about what you do the next play and that’s bow your neck up and make a stop and that’s exactly what they did.”
Later in the second half, the Lions were able to take advantage of a pair of Wylie miscues as a bad snap on fourth-and-4 resulted in a 12-yard loss and Brownwood taking over at the Bulldog 36. Nine plays later Jaylan Brown, who finished with 52 yards on just seven carries, found the end zone from 13 yards out to boost the lead to 21-7 at 3:29 of the third quarter.
The next Wylie possession culminated with a 29-yard punt that didn’t reach midfield as Brownwood began its next drive at the Bulldog 48. Seven snaps later Brown was back in the end zone on an 8-yard carry to extend the lead to 28-7 with 11:40 to go.
“I had to come in and change the momentum,” said Brown, who also started at outside linebacker. “We were a little down offensively, the momentum was a little rocky and I knew had to come in and make some plays so we could come out with the win at the end of the night.”
Burnett added, “We know Jaylan’s a starting running back but he’s also a vital part of our defense and we know we have to have our defense stopping teams. We let him know when it’s your time to go, go and do your thing. There’s no selfishness, our kids are playing as a team and when they know it’s their turn to go, they go. Same with our D-line of Quinten McCarty, Cole Miller and Davis Le getting in there and getting reps when we had to have them. They did what they had to do to get us in the win column.”
Perhaps most important to the Lions’ victory was the start to the game, as Brownwood scored on its first two offensive possessions to grab a lead it would never relinquish.
A nine-play, 73-yard drive to start the game ended with a 24-yard scoring sprint by Hall and a 7-0 Lions lead just 3:26 into the contest.
Wylie answered with an 18-play, 75-yard trek that chewed 6:55 off the clock before Malachi Daniels scored on a 3-yard carry with 1:39 left in the opening stanza, knotting the score at 7.
The Lions immediately fired back with a seven-play, 66-yard march that ended with a 29-yard scoring toss from Hall to Hooker on the first snap of the second period, staking Brownwood to its 14-7 advantage it maintained until midway third quarter.
“It helped us out a lot,” Hall said in regard to the confidence boost the offense received from scoring on its first two possessions. “The first drive we did our thing, the second drive we did our thing. That helped us out and we were able to have momentum throughout the whole game.”
Burnett added, “Offensively for us to put up 35 points against that team with 10 people in new positions is big for us. They’re fighters and they’re willing to do what we’ve got to do. We’ll go watch film and see what we did wrong and try and fix that but to come out and put up 35 is a blessing. I couldn’t be any more proud of them. I saw some great throws and catches, I saw some timely runs and I saw some mistakes, but for the most part we won more plays on offense than they did on defense and that was the difference.”
Next week, the Lions will host Marble Falls (0-1) – which is coming off a 40-14 loss to Pflugerville Connally – at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
***
Lions 35, Abilene Wylie 21
SCORE BY QUARTERS
| Brownwood | 7 | 7 | 7 | 14 | – 35 |
| Abilene Wylie | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14 | – 21 |
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SCORING SUMMARY
B: Ike Hall 24 run (Junior Martinez kick), 8:34, 1st
W: Malachi Daniels 3 run (Brady Clark kick), 1:39, 1st
B: Morsello Hooker 29 pass from Hall (Martinez kick), 11:55, 2nd
B: Jaylan Brown 13 run (Martinez kick), 3:29, 3rd
B: Brown 8 run (Martinez kick), 11:40, 4th
W: Braden Regala 14 pass from Keegan Anderson (Clark kick), 5:46, 4th
W: Kenny Scott 40 fumble return (Clark kick), 4:37, 4th
B: Hall 66 run (Martinez kick), 3:40, 4th
***
| TEAM STATS | B | W |
| First Downs | 15 | 16 |
| Total Offense | 332 | 320 |
| Rushes-Yards | 27-247 | 32-78 |
| Passing Yards | 85 | 242 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 8-15-1 | 20-37-2 |
| Penalties-Yards | 8-60 | 11-75 |
| Fumbles Lost | 1 | 0 |
| Punts-Average | 5-40.2 | 5-34.8 |
***
PLAYER STATS
RUSHING: Brownwood – Ike Hall 15-168, 2 TDs; Jaylan Brown 7-52, 2 TDs; Levi Pearson 11-15, Logan McKibben 4-12. Wylie – Julius Laine 8-33; Malachi Daniels 12-32; Braden Regala 1-15; Bear Meng 4-23; Keegan Anderson 3-(-13); Team 1-(-12).
PASSING: Brownwood – Hall 8-15-1-85, TD. Wylie – Meng 11-20-1-146; Anderson 9-17-1-96.
RECEIVING: Brownwood – Carson Noe 3-18, Morsello Hooker 1-29, TD; Xavier Zepada 1-21; Weston Wolf 1-11; Aaron Edmonds 1-4; Hayden Noe 1-2. Wylie – Regala 11-111, TD; Laine 3-25; Derrick Evans 2-56; Daniels 2-6; Brenden Underwood 1-37; Hunter Hood 1-7.
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KICKING – Brownwood – Junior Martinez 5 of 5 PATs. No FG attempts
5 punts, 201 yards, 40.2 average.
