Forget about a letdown or a short week effecting the Amarillo High Sandies on Thursday night at Dick Bivins Stadium, they had a playoff spot to clinch.
Having established themselves as the team to beat in District 2-5A Division I, the Sandies didn’t mess around against Frenship. They took advantage of turnovers and performed with their usual offensive steadiness to jump to an early lead and roll to a 41-14 victory, clinching a playoff spot and a first round playoff game at home in three weeks.
Amarillo High (7-1, 4-0 in district) carried the momentum from last week’s 24-14 win at Abilene High, which has been the team to beat in the district the last few years. The trick for the Sandies was not to turn that confidence into overconfidence or let the hangover from such a big win linger with only six days to prepare for the Tigers (4-4, 3-2).
AHS coach Chad Dunnam refused to play down the significance of the victory as his team showed no comedown from such a big win the previous Friday.
“It was a huge win,” Dunnam said. “First and foremost (the Tigers) are a good football team this soon removed from 6A football. They’re used to making some playoff runs the last couple of years and playing some elite football teams. It was a tremendous performance in all aspects of the game.”
Amarillo High played about as good a first half as it could have, as the Sandies converted three first quarter interceptions into three touchdowns en route to a 27-0 halftime lead.
The Sandies first got on the board with their defense. Linebacker Noah Flores pressured a scrambling Frenship quarterback James Ordonez into a poorly thrown ball which Creed Cavalier turned into a 22-yard interception return for a score which gave Amarillo High a 7-0 lead.
“We’ve been working on that and I knew my assignment,” Cavalier said. “I trusted my coaches and fundamentals. Once I caught it I was lucky enough to get some good blocks and get in the end zone. Takeaways is a big part of our defense and it helps our offense out.”
It got no better for Frenship on the next possession. On the first play after the ensuing kickoff, Raider Payne intercepted Ordonez at the Frenship 25-yard line.
The Sandies converted as Sy Richardson scored on a 4-yard run to boost the lead to 14-0. It was the first of two scoring runs for Richardson, who ran for a game-high 145 yards on 23 carries.
Frenship appeared to threaten late in the first quarter with a drive into Amarillo High territory. However, Deuce Patterson recorded Amarillo High’s third interception to give the Sandies the ball at their own 3.
From there, the Sandies went on a 97-yard scoring march which ended 21 seconds into the second quarter when Raider Payne scored on a 4-yard run to make it 21-0.
“We’ve been focusing on our defense this year and we’ve been doing a great job getting takeaways,” Dunnam said. “We got three right there in the first half and we got points on every single one of them. We had multiple fourth down stops and we consider that a turnover as well and we didn’t have a turnover. If we keep protecting the football like that, it’s a recipe for success.”
Frenship got in desperation mode after that. The Tigers opted to go for it near midfield, and the Sandies stopped Ordonez on a keeper a yard short of a first down.
Amarillo High took advantage of another short field as Richardson scored on another run from 12 yards out to make it 27-0.
That ended most of the damage Richardson would do to the Frenship defense for the game. He’s emerged as a steadying factor on offense, especially on a night when the passing game produced few big plays.
“We have a good line that will block for us and when we found out much we were averaging per carry there was really no reason to switch too much to the pass,” Richardson said. “We just found something which worked and stuck with it. No reason to fix it if it wasn’t broken. Our passing game is improving steadily, and if I can hold the line while that’s happening I’ll just fill that role.”
Frenship showed some flicker of life by taking the second half kickoff and marching down the field to get on the board, concluding the drive on a 9-yard scoring pass from Ordonez to Maddux Archibald to cut it to 27-7.
On their ensuing possession, though, the Sandies snuffed out whatever hopes the Tigers may have had. They answered by marching down the field and back into the end zone as the passing game came to life, with Skipworth Callaway hitting Landon Barker on a 21-yard scoring pass to make it 34-7.
“The only thing that probably went wrong in the first half was a muffed extra point,” Dunnam said. “I didn’t think we responded real well in the second half by letting (Frenship) have that opening drive to go down there and score but our offense went back out there and answered which was huge.”
Payne, who’s been Amarillo High’s Swiss Army Knife all season, again lived up to that on both sides of the ball. Playing fullback and occasionally running out of the wildcat, Payne ran for 55 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries.
Skipworth, a sophomore, had an efficient night at quarterback, completing 20-of-30 passes for 181 yards without an interception.
The night overshadowed a big night for Frenship’s Noah Gonzales, who had a game-high eight catches for 109 yards. Problem for the Tigers was that often times their quarterbacks had a rough time getting the ball out to their receivers, as Amarillo High recorded six sacks.
Mathematically, the Sandies haven’t clinched a district title or a No. 1 playoff seed yet. However, they’ve beaten the four teams directly behind them in the district standings, giving them all tiebreaker advantages with their final two games coming against Lubbock High and Caprock, who have a combined 1-7 district mark.
“I don’t think there’s a blueprint,” Dunnam said. “What you really have to focus on at this time of the year you have to be playing your best football. You can’t take a step back just because we’ve reached the playoffs. We have to use every opportunity we have to improve as a football team.”
Photo gallery by Carter Pirtle:
