In one of the wilder opening round games to kick off the UIL Texas High School playoffs Thursday, Childress and Littlefield lit up the scoreboard with the Bobcats piling up the points to pull away in the second half for a commanding 84-34 victory in a Class 3A Division II bi-district game at Happy State Bank Stadium.
The 84 points is the most points ever scored in a postseason game for a proud Childress program with a deep playoff tradition.
This game definitely saw the fireworks for all 48 minutes. These two teams not only combined for 118 points, but also combined for a total of 1,066 offensive yards.
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The Bobcats offense alone scored an incredible 12 touchdowns in the win, posting 636 yards of offense.
“I was really proud of how we responded,” Childress head coach Bo Helm said. “We had a good week of practice and we were focused. We were a little tight last week and didn’t play well against Canadian. I thought we came out loose in this game and just played like we knew how.”
The Bobcats (8-3 overall) now await Friday’s Wall-Anthony winner in the area round.
This was a very back-and-forth game to start before the Bobcats took the momentum early in the second quarter. Tied 14-14, Childress took the lead for good when running back Lucian Davis broke free down the sideline for a 67-yard sprint towards paydirt, putting the Bobcats up 21-14 with 10:36 left in the second quarter.
Littlefield tried to respond, moving the ball down inside the Childress 20, however, turned the ball over on downs. Not two plays later, Childress quarterback Koen Galligan sprinted his way to the house going 47-yards for a touchdown giving the Bobcats control at 28-14. From there the Bobcats punched it two more times as part of 28 unanswered points to go up 42-14 late in the second quarter.
“That was huge for us to get that stop and flip the momentum,” Helm said. “We had struggled with that but we did a good job of capatalizing when we needed to. The offense started to click, the defense made plays and everything came together.”
The Wildcats made one final push at Childress cutting the lead 49-34, until Childress exploded to end the game with 40 straight points. Crewz Keys used his speed to go 66 yards, setting up a 1-yard score for Corbin Taylor, pushing the Bobcat lead back to 56-34. On the next possession, Childress had the game in its hands when Colton Teichelman plunged his way in from a yard out making it 63-34.
“The offensive line was great for us the entire game,” Helm said. “They opened holes, and our backs were able to hit those holes and get big yards. We had a lot of balance in the run game and we took advantage.”
Out of the 636 yards, Childress punished Littlefield (7-4) with 469 of those yards coming from the ground game. The Bobcats had four players go over the century mark led by Davis, who finished the game with 151 yards on 15 carries with two touchdowns. Jaime Estrada touched the ball six times for 110 yards with two TDs, Galligan added 104 yards rushing with a score and Taylor hit 100 yards on eight carries and a touchdown.
Galligan also delivered in the air when it mattered going 8-of-13 for 167 yards with four touchdowns.
“We were clicking,” Galligan said. “We had that momentum shift in the second quarter and never let it go. The offensive line was incredible and we showed we can be a run-heavy team.”
Littlefield receiver Jayden Barrio had a huge night with 11 receptions for 142 yards including a 72-yard touchdown, and quarterback Sammy Saenz went 20-of-34 for 263 yards with three touchdown passes and an interception.
