By Lenny Jurado El Paso Times ODESSA - History will have to wait for El Paso, as the city’s lone remaining high school football team was ousted from the playoffs Saturday. Parkland High School, trying to become El Paso’s first football team to advance past the third playoff round, gave up 44 first-half points against Stephenville and went on to lose 51-13 at Ratliff Stadium.
“They’re a good team,” Matador senior offensive lineman Nate White said. “Every team is a good team in the third round. We came out, we slacked it a little bit, they stepped up and capitalized. We tried to come back in the fourth quarter, but it was too late. (ellipses) To go down like this is kind of a heart-breaker for us.”
The loss ends Parkland’s season at 9-4, while Stephenville (10-3) will have a rematch with No. 2 Everman (13-0) at 1 p.m. MST Saturday at Waco ISD.
“They’re a good football team,” Stephenville head coach Joseph Gillespie said of Parkland. “They didn’t get here by happenstance. (ellipse) Things just came together for us today in all phases of the game.”
Did it ever.
In the first half, Stephenville scored on all five offensive possessions, while limiting the Matadors to 46 yards of total offense.
Stephenville quarterback Brad Picha threw for three first-half touchdowns, and tailback Brad Mills finished the game with 156 all-purpose yards and a touchdown.
“They were just a machine, and it was hard for us to stop them,” Parkland head coach Jerry Walker said. “Defensively, the were pretty much sitting back and reading us and waiting for us to do something and sending all 11 people to go for it.”
Stephenville scored twice in the half’s final two minutes, once on a punt return and another on a fumble recovery run back for a touchdown.
The third quarter was Parkland’s best, as the Matadors limited Stephenville to three offensive plays - two of the them interceptions by Omar Martinez and Shawn Crawford - and scored on a 6-yard run by Justin Sedillo.
That score culminated a 17-play, 69-yard drive that consumed 8 minutes, 46 seconds.
“We made some adjustments at halftime, and the kids were down a little bit and we got them up,” Walker said.
Stephenville went up 51-7 midway through the fourth quarter, then Parkland closed the scoring on a nine-play, 68-yard drive capped by a 1-yard run by quarterback Assad Taylor.
Parkland played the second half without star tailback Mike Davis (eight carries, 22 yards), who sat on the sideline with a bag of ice on the back of his neck.
This had been quite the run for Parkland, which made school history by winning an area-round game after finishing with the fourth seed in 2-4A.
The Matadors also became only the city’s 11th football team to advance past the second playoff round.
“I told them (players) that no matter what happens here, we’re all proud of them for getting this far,” Walker said.
I played 4 years of ball for Parkland in the late 70's. I've been living in Stephenville since 2001 and both my kids have played for the Yellowjackets. I plan on at least 12 football games a year and have seen four State Championships. A graduating Senior can often plan on playing over 50 fotball games in a 4-year career as opposed to the 40 that MOST high school footballers will play.
Nearly 3,000 people drove the 285 miles to Odessa from Stephenville. I was ashamed to see a mere 300 or so -including the band and cape twirlers - who drove 260-some.
Point is, Parkland - and ALL El Paso teams - have one basic problem: They MUST learn how to win. Learn from this experience, Matadors. Stephenville's color-coordinated fans, banners, signs, smoking giant helmet, air horns and can fans - these things are intimidating to an opponent AND their fans and are VERY inspiring to a team. You can do this as well, MATS. Do it NEXT year. You'll be even better in 2009 and MAYBE the Jackets will meet you AGAIN in Odessa. I promise you, the Jackets ARE planning to be there. These people are USED to winning. You gotta get that way, too. An ex-jock is pulling for ya!
Blessings!
Mike
Posted by: Mike Tummillo | Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 05:33 PM
yah, proud as hell
Posted by: skybet free bet | Sunday, February 01, 2009 at 05:03 AM