The No. 6 Brownwood Lions began their 50th postseason appearance in program history with their 75th playoff victory overall, thrashing the San Elizario Eagles, 56-0, on a rainy Thursday night at Gordon Wood Stadium in Region I-4A Division I bi-district playoff action.
The first home playoff game for Brownwood (10-1) since 2006 – which was also the last time the Lions played seven games in a season at Gordon Wood Stadium – resulted in just 73 yards allowed to San Elizario (2-8) and a pair of takeaways by the defense, while the offense finished with 390 yards – 238 yards and five scoring tosses through the air to go along with 152 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
“No. 1, I’m proud of them, they did exactly what we wanted them to do,” said Lions sixth-year head coach Sammy Burnett, who tallied his 101st victory in 158 career games and improved to 43-25 at Brownwood. “Of course there’s some things we can work on and some things we can fix, but the elements weren’t conducive to what we wanted to do.”
Behind the front line of Logan Knight, Aidan Packheiser, Davis Le, Cole Miller and Quinten McCarty, quarterback Ike Hall threw for 215 yards and five touchdowns while rushing for 113 yards and another score. After a slow start through the air, Hall connected on 5 of his last 7 seven tosses and completed 6 of 13 attempts overall for the game.
“A lot of people have been saying we can’t throw the ball, so we wanted to prove them wrong and we did today,” said Hall, who has now thrown for 1,544 yards with 16 touchdowns and five interceptions. “We were out here completing passes and we looked good. We started off a little slow but got it going.”
With the Lions wearing white jerseys at home for the first time in at least 20 years, as Burnett gave San Elizario the option of uniform top since the District 1 fourth-seed Eagles agreed to make the trip to Brownwood, Hall’s first three completions all went to Morsello Hooker – and all accounted for touchdowns.
On the Lions’ first drive, a five-play, 58-yard trek, Hall connected with Hooker on a 34-yard post pattern for a 7-0 lead at the 7:16 mark of the first period.
Facing a third-and-28 after a plethora of penalties on the second Brownwood drive, Hall again found Hooker behind the defense for a 65-yard scoring toss that increased the Lions’ lead to 14-0 with 2:23 left in the opening period.
Brownwood’s next drive began at the San Elizario 25 after Noah Gonzalez recovered a fumble, the first of two takeaways for the Lions.
Three plays later, Hooker was back in the end zone on a 22-yard catch and run from Hall, stretching the advantage to 21-0 at the 1:39 mark of the opening stanza.
“This game made me feel very confident,” said Hooker, who finished with 121 receiving yards on his three grabs. “I thank God for my teammates and them trusting me to get the touchdowns I have right now. Our offense is really good and we played one heck of a game.”
The final touchdown of the first half for the Lions came with 11:42 left in the second period on a 63-yard punt return by Jordyn Nickerson, who had come close to finding the end zone on multiple returns since the start of district action, and finally hit pay dirt.
“It was amazing,” Nickerson said. “Every week leading up to this I’ve gotten closer and closer and I finally got it tonight.”
Coming off their bye last week, Burnett considered the first half “rusty” though the Lions led 28-0 at the break. Brownwood produced 161 yards over the first two quarters and allowed 93. During the second half, the Lions tacked on 229 more yards while limiting San Elizario to -20 total yards in the third and fourth periods.
“They were packing the box the whole time and that forced us to throw the ball and we did a pretty good job of it for the most part,” Burnett said. “Defensively, we made some adjustments at halftime. There was a lot of conversation, a lot of discussion and it worked out because we stymied them in the second half, which was important. You can make adjustments all you want but if the defense doesn’t execute those adjustments it does you no good. They listened, applied it and went out and did a good job.”
San Elizario running back Zamar Vargas provided all the positive yardage for the Eagles as he rushed for 89 yards on 20 carries. The rest of team finished with -16 yards of total offense on 20 rushes and one incomplete pass. Consequently, the Lions have now allowed a total of 6 yards passing over their past three outings.
After Hooker provided the highlight reel on offense in the first half, Carson Noe became Hall’s favorite target in the third period. First, Noe hauled in a 64-yard touchdown reception on the Lions’ first play of the second half, padding the cushion to 35-0 just 21 seconds into the third period.
The Lions coughed up the ball for the only time in the game on their second possession of the third quarter, but the third drive also lasted just one play as Hall found Noe again for a 25-yard scoring strike, boosting the advantage to 41-0 with 6:07 left in the third.
“We have big play capability from both of them,” Burnett said of Hooker and Noe. ‘We’ve always had it, we haven’t had to use it, so it was a blessing to see it happen. The communication with the routes and quarterback were good. Ike put the ball on the money and made some good throws. The ones that we didn’t complete were the ones out to the side, which are the easy ones, but I’m pleased with the way we threw and caught for the most part.”
The Lions’ ground game amassed just 35 yards in the first half on a mere six carries, but with 2:21 left in the third period Hall more than doubled Brownwood’s rushing output as he broke free for an 87-yard touchdown scamper, increasing the lead to 48-0. For the season, Hall continues to pace the Lions with 1,363 yards and 19 touchdowns on the ground.
With 1:22 left on the clock, the next-guys-up for Brownwood were able to light up the scoreboard. A five-play, 40-yard drive – which featured a pair of holding penalties – culminated with a 31-yard touchdown run by Raven Prado, who originally fumbled the ball in the backfield before scooping it up and outrunning the Eagle defense. Earlier in the drive, Caven Webster caught a 23-yard toss from Braeden Stacks.
After the touchdown, an errant snap on the extra point attempt wound up in the hands of kicker Junior Martinez, who was able to find Weston Wolf in the back of the end zone for a tip drill two-point conversion and the final 56-point margin.
Brownwood then iced the game on the ensuing possession as Enrique Vazquez pounced on a San Elizario fumble at the Eagle 25 with 62 seconds left, and the Lions ran out the clock.
“Our 2s came in and did a good job and some of those guys had never played on the varsity level or a football Friday night atmosphere,” Burnett said. “They went in there and didn’t look like deer in the headlights and did a pretty decent job.”
Thursday’s game likely served as the last at Gordon Wood Stadium for the senior class, who were seventh graders when Burnett arrived at his alma mater to become head football coach.
“We aren’t here without the seniors and it started back in December when they set a goal to rectify what happened to us last year,” Burnett said. “We’re not at that point yet, we have to continue to grow and take every day as a blessing and get better today so we can be a better football team tomorrow. That’s the mindset they’ve had from the get-go. They led us in the offseason, they lead us in practice and they lead us on the field. You’re not going to be successful without a strong senior class and they’ve shown they’re willing to lead and they’re still hungry.”
Next week, the back-to-back District 2 champion Lions will square off with either District 3 runner-up Canyon Randall (6-4) or District 4 third seed Burkburnett (3-7) – who meet at 7 p.m. Friday in Childress – in the area round of the playoffs.
Burnett stated if Randall advances it would face the Lions next Friday in Midland. Plans had not been finalized for a potential Brownwood-Burkburnett second-round tilt.
***
Lions 56, San Elizario 0
SCORE BY QUARTERS
| San Elizario | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – 0 |
| Brownwood | 21 | 7 | 20 | 8 | – 56 |
***
SCORING SUMMARY
B: Morsello Hooker 34 pass from Ike Hall (Junior Martinez kick), 7:16, 1st
B: Hooker 65 pass from Hall (Martinez kick), 2:33, 1st
B: Hooker 22 pass from Hall (Martinez kick), 1:39, 1st
B: Jordyn Nickerson 63 punt return (Martinez kick), 11:42, 2nd
B: Carson Noe 64 pass from Hall (Martinez kick), 11:39, 3rd
B: Noe 25 pass from Hall (kick failed), 6:07, 3rd
B: Hall 87 run (Martinez kick), 2:21, 3rd
B: Raven Prado 31 run (Weston Wolf pass from Martinez), 1:22, 4th
***
| TEAM STATS | S | B |
| First Downs | 4 | 9 |
| Total Offense | 73 | 390 |
| Rushes-Yards | 41-73 | 13-152 |
| Passing Yards | 0 | 238 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 0-1-0 | 7-15-0 |
| Fumbles Lost | 2 | 1 |
| Penalties-Yards | 7-35 | 5-45 |
| Punts-Average | 8-37.3 | 2-41.0 |
***
PLAYER STATS
RUSHING: S – Zamar Vargas 20-89; Diego Flores 10-0; JR Garcia 8-0; Team 2-(-16). B – Ike Hall 4-113, TD; Raven Prado 1-31, TD; Levi Pearson 4-10; Logan McKibben 1-2; Braeden Stacks 3-(-4).
PASSING: S – Vargas 0-1-0-0. B – Hall 6-13-0-215, 5 TDs; Stacks 1-2-0-23.
RECEIVING: S – No receptions. B – Morsello Hooker 3-121, 3 TDs; Carson Noe 3-94, 2 TDs; Caven Webster 1-23.
KICKING: B – Junior Martinez 6 of 7 PATs. 0 of 0 FGs.
2 punts, 82 yards, 41.0 average.
