The emotional juice which comes in an early season meeting between teams unbeaten in district was on display Thursday night at Dick Bivins Stadium, which didn’t exactly make for the tidiest of football.
That didn’t matter to the Amarillo High Sandies, who left Bivins knowing that they’re alone on top of District 2-5A Division I for at least the next 24 hours.
After stumbling in the third quarter against Lubbock Monterey, the Sandies found their footing fairly quickly. Amarillo High closed the game with 10 points after a pair of late defensive stops and held on for a 24-14 victory, the biggest of the season thus far for the Sandies (5-1, 3-0 in district).
As would befit a matchup of teams unbeaten district teams, the intensity of the game often led to less than artistic situations, and the team which could best play through it would be rewarded. In the end, that was the Sandies.
“We were expecting a great performance out of them,” AHS coach Chad Dunnam said of the Monterey Plainsmen. “We watched them on film and they just got better every single week. They played keep away from us and threw where we weren’t. I commend them and it was a hard-fought battle.”
Offensive afficionados couldn’t find much to like about the first half until Amarillo High scored on the final two possessions late in the second quarter to take a 14-0 halftime lead.
After that, though, the game morphed more into the close contest that was anticipated. Amarillo High had trouble moving the ball and Monterey (3-3, 2-1) hit some big passes to tie the game.
The Plainsmen took the second half kickoff and took just over two minutes to get on the board, as Jonah Reed his Noah Alexander with a 41-yard scoring pass to cut it to 14-7. Following that, the two teams exchanged punts, but on the second one, Amarillo High’s Deuce Patterson fumbled and Monterey took over just inside midfield.
Reed hit E’Davion Taylor for a 27-yard gain which set up a 1-yard scoring run by Legin Williams to tie the game 14-14 with just over three minutes left in the third quarter.
“We needed to be able to do that,” Monterey coach Jason Sims said. “We knew that we were a good football team and that (the Sandies) were a good football team. We didn’t come and play our best brand of football in the first half so we had to dig ourselves out of a hole. My kids just expect to do that and it’s who we’re supposed to be the whole time.”
That thought may have occurred to the Sandies as well. They responded with what might have been their best drive of the night, which concluded early in the fourth quarter when sophomore quarterback Callaway Skipworth threw his second touchdown pass of the game, hitting Jeb Grammer for a 19-yard score to make it 21-14 with just under 10 minutes remaining.
It was a capsule of what has made the Sandies successful so far and given them a chance to win a district championship.
“I think everything we did tonight getting into that fourth quarter was a reflection of the work we’ve done in the past,” Dunnam said. “Don’t panic when you’re in a close ball game. Winning’s not going to be easy and you can’t always want it to be easy. You’re going to be challenged and you’ve got to finish the deal.”
There was a lot of time left, though, before the deal could be finished. Monterey drove to the Amarillo High 36-yard line on the ensuing possession, but the Sandies stopped the Plainsmen on downs.
However, Monterey forced a three-and-out and had under five minutes left to drive down the field and tie it. Reed scrambled to his left and threw toward the left sideline where he’d had some success in the second half, but AHS linebacker Chris Leblanc tipped the ball and sophomore defensive back Coy Cavalier intercepted it near midfield and returned it to the Monterey 30.
“Earlier this week I was in the street with my friends throwing the ball around and when I see the ball in the air I say I gotta go get that ball,” Cavalier said. “I knew I had to get us good field position. I could feel the momentum shift and our energy went up and theirs went way down.”
The Sandies couldn’t fully slam the door though, and when they faced a fourth-and-one at the Monterey 1, they opted for a chip shot 18-yard field goal by Clay Goodrich with 2:04 left to make it 24-14 and force the Plainsmen into scoring twice.
Monterey threw a scare into the Sandies on the first play after the ensuing kickoff when Reed hit Taylor for a 37-yard gain down to the AHS 26. Two plays later though, the Sandies still proved Cavalier.
Reed through long down the middle toward Amarillo High’s goal line, but Creed Cavalier intercepted the ball to seal the win. Creed, a senior, is Coy’s older brother with two years of previous varsity experience and he wasn’t going to walk out of Bivins without getting an interception on the same night his little brother got one.
“I was thinking that (Coy) got a little pick so I’ve got to get me one,” Creed said. “I’m very proud of him. Not many people can say they got an interception with their brother in the same game. We’re going to make that a goal from now on.”
The Cavaliers have an enviable athletic bloodline. Their father, Tony, is Amarillo High’s defensive coordinator and their grandfather is the late Dennis Cavalier, who was Pampa’s longtime respected football coach.
For that matter, their mother Shannon was a star volleyball player at Amarillo High and West Texas A&M and older sister Sienna was also a volleyball standout at Amarillo High and is now playing at Lubbock Christian University.
“I’m blessed to have that family in our program,” Dunnam said. “It’s a special deal. I’ve known those kids their whole lives and they’re clutch so it doesn’t surprise me. Coy’s developing every week and getting better.”
Both offenses seemed to be feeling each other out early, but field position was a big factor in getting Amarillo High on the board. Rhett Ladd hit a nice punt which the Sandies downed at the Monterey 1 line late in the first quarter.
Monterey managed a first down but had to punt, as Amarillo High took over at the Monterey 49. The Sandies took advantage of a short field by marching down and cashing in when Clayton Sluder ran in from a yard out to make it 7-0 with 5:31 left in the half.
Amarillo High forced another punt and got the ball in fairly good position again. This time, though, the Sandies used a big play to get into the end zone, as Callaway Skipworth hit a wide open Deuce Patterson on a 44-yard scoring pass to make it 14-0 with 33 seconds left in the half.
The Sandies had, for them, a fairly pedestrian game offensively with 281 total yards. They more than compensated defensively, especially on the ground, holding Monterey to 36 yards rushing for the evening.
Amarillo High’s Sy Richardson had another productive game running the ball with a game-high 134 yards on 26 carries, the bulk of those coming in the second half. The Plainsmen did most of their damage throwing the ball, as Reed completed 18-of-33 for 237 yards and Taylor had a game-high nine catches for 137 yards.
Photo gallery by Joe Garcia III:
![Football referee on the sideline signaling a touchdown with both arms raised during a night game, stadium lights in the background.]","Official in black and white raises both arms to signal a score, stands near the end zone as a crowd watches.]","Referee signaling touchdown at a night football game, yellow goalposts and stands visible behind him.]","Upright referee signals a score near the end zone while players and spectators look on under stadium lights.]","Night football game: referee raises arms in triumph as the crowd watches from the stands near the end zone.](https://cdn-pps.presspass.news/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/09080636/lubbock-monterey-vs-amarillo-high-football-jpegJoe-pps-36.jpg "lubbock-monterey-vs-amarillo-high-football-jpegJoe-pps-36 | Press Pass Sports")
