It says something for the progress the Palo Duro Dons have made this season that the biggest thing they had to deal with Friday night was getting out of their own way.
In a matchup at Dick Bivins Stadium to determine sole possession of the District 2-5A Division II lead, Palo Duro seemed to have every chance in the fourth quarter to put away Abilene Wylie and make a statement. However, a series of penalties and a shocking turn of events with a turnover left the Dons tied with the Bulldogs in the final two minutes.
Then, almost as if they felt the need to generate more drama for themselves, they wrote themselves a happy ending which might make a Hollywood studio exec scratch his head. It came when Raymond Johnson V scored his third touchdown of the game on a 16-yard run with 53 seconds remaining to give Palo Duro a thrilling 42-35 victory.
That gave the Dons a 2-0 mark in district and their fifth straight win, not to mention sole possession of the early district lead. They’re now 5-1 on the season for the first time since 2002.
[tds_partial_locker tds_locker_id=”26894″]Coach Eric Mims, himself a Palo Duro alum, can certainly appreciate such history, even if his team didn’t do things the easy way, especially in the fourth quarter.
“It’s a results-oriented game, it’s not about style points and we tried to give the game away several times with some undisciplined football,” Mims said. “I think our culture has improved to the point where when bad things happen we don’t tuck our tails. We kept playing hard and we ended up getting the result that we wanted.”
The score indicated a shootout and that’s what the game became, especially in the second half. Palo Duro outgained Wylie (4-3, 2-1) by a 471-274 margin which was reflected on the scoreboard, although neither team had an easy time stopping each other late.
Johnson scored his second touchdown of the game on an 11-yard run with 10:47 left to put the Dons up 35-21, but nobody at Bivins could have felt that lead was safe. When the Bulldogs got the ball back, they marched deep into PD territory, helped in no small part by three penalties on the Dons which gave them first downs.
On fourth and goal, quarterback Jadin Karleskint scored on a keeper from 2 yards out to cut it to 35-28 with 6:57 left in the game.
Oddly enough, both defenses came up with stops on the respective possessions, and Palo Duro got the ball back at midfield after holding the Bulldogs on downs. The Dons were moving down the field as the clock ticked down toward the two-minute warning when lightning struck.
Quarterback Julian Reese II was carrying the ball around the left side and ended up near the sideline and was trying to stay inbounds at the Wylie 20-yard line. During the struggle, Wylie’s Jordan Lockett took the ball away and sprinted back the other way, taking it all the way to the Palo Duro 5.
“That fumble pushed me to execute and get that game-winning drive,” Reese said. “I was trying to stay inbounds and (Lockett) just slipped in and took it.”
But that drama didn’t happen right away. Two plays after the fumble, Wylie’s Dylan Regala scored on a 1-yard run to tie it 35-35 with 1:58 left in regulation.
On Wylie’s ensuing kickoff, Reese was stationed inside his own five to return it. the ball bounced near the goal line, and Reese had a decision to make.
“I thought it was going to go out of bounds but it started bouncing at the 1,” Reese said. “I just had to grab it and hope for the best. I saw a hole and I attacked it.”
Reese turned near disaster into triumph, picking up the ball and taking it all the way to the PD 49 to put the Dons in ideal field position. On top of that, his helmet came off at the end of the play after getting grabbed by the face mask, incurring one of the easiest penalties anyone called this season and moving the Dons to the Wylie 36.
“Before this game we talked about (the Bulldogs) being back-to-back district champions and they’d never lost a game in this district,” Mims said. “What I said is if we’re going to be the champs we’ve got to beat the champs. I told the kids ‘Down goes Frazier’ and we’ve got to keep swinging.”
Reese was none the worse for wear when he resumed the game at quarterback, although the ensuing drive didn’t start well. He threw a backward lateral to Johnson that was dropped, and Johnson had to pounce on it for an eight-yard loss to avoid a turnover.
It’s a sign of Palo Duro’s growing maturity that the Dons didn’t panic in the least. Reese hit Kyron Brown over the middle for a 28-yard gain down to Wylie’s 16 on the next play.
Johnson didn’t waste any time cashing in on the next play, as he found a crease in the left side and beat the defense to the corner for what proved to be the game-winning score. If anybody still remembered the misplay on the lateral, it was quickly forgotten.
“We just had to do what we had to do,” said Johnson, who had a game-high 131 yards on 19 carries. “I had to make it up and do my thing. It was really supposed to just run the clock down, but I saw it and I went in.”
Considering how the fourth quarter went, 53 seconds could have been an eternity, especially due to the limited availability of defensive back Darien Lewis, who saw limited duty due to an undisclosed inury. The Bulldogs took over at their own 23 after the kickoff, and Brown sacked Karleskint for a 5-yard loss, putting Wylie in desperation mode with no timeouts remaining. Karleskint scrambled and hit Aaron Edwards for seven yards, but he was tackled inbounds and the clock expired before Wylie could run another play.
Palo Duro struck first late in the first quarter after both teams were slow to start offensively. The Dons got in the end zone on a 5-yard run by Johnson to go up 7-0.
Early in the second quarter after forcing the second straight three-and-out by Wylie, the Dons took advantage of good field position, and cashed in on a 1-yard run by quarterback Reese to go up 14-0.
That was the first of two scoring runs for Reese, who completed 14-of-22 passes for 216 yards in addition to running for 42 yards. While the passing game was hot for the Dons in the first half, they picked up most of their yards in the second half running the ball, as they ran for 167 of their 255 yards after halftime.
“I don’t think it was our best (offensive) performance because we had a turnover that should have sealed the game,” Mims said. “There’s still some room to improve, but at the end of the day, you score 42 points versus a really good team you’ve got to be satisfied. Our offensive coordinator does a really good job of making adjustments. Guys did a good job executing play calls.”
Wylie finally broke through with a big play, as Karleskint hit the aptly-named Blaze Ruffin on a crossing pattern, and Ruffin did the rest to complete a 65-yard scoring pass which cut PD’s lead to 14-7.
The Dons then drove down to the Wylie 32 with over three minutes left in the first half and faced a fourth-and-nine. Electing to go for it, Reese made the decision pay off, hitting sophomore Arturo Velasquez in the end zone to make it 21-7.
Wylie had to punt on the next possession, but Karleskint’s punt took a nice hop inside the PD 10 and rolled out at the 4. The Bulldogs then used their timeouts and forced a punt by Noah Faragoza, which Wylie partially blocked and took over at the PD 15.
Two plays later, Cooper Jones carried it in from 6 yards out to cut it to 21-14 with 20 seconds left in the half.
Around the rest of the district, Abilene Cooper bounced back from a loss last week by absolutely dismantling Lubbock-Cooper 66-16 at home, and Wichita Falls Legacy pulled off an upset downing Plainview 56-42.
