CHILDRESS – Defense becomes the name of the game so often in the playoffs, and Friday night at Fair Park Stadium the Shallowater Mustangs showed why it helped take them this far.
Sadly, they also discovered that there’s more to winning in the postseason than just that.
Shallowater showed a definite playoff caliber defense in a Class 3A Division I area round game against Peaster. The Mustangs had a lot more trouble when they had the ball though, occasionally acting as their own worst enemy in failing to score, as they lost 16-0 to see their season end.
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With four turnovers and a pair of touchdowns called back due to penalties, Shallowater (8-4) could only wonder about what might have been as the season came to a close.
“We knew (Peaster) had a good defense,” Shallowater coach Rodney Vincent said. “We had a ball that was short down there on the goal line and we fumbled it on the next play, then they called back a touchdown early on too. I feel like that those are big moments in the game we have to overcome.”
Shallowater pulled off the only really big offensive plays of the first half but they didn’t translate into any points, as Peaster (11-1) led 10-0 at halftime thanks in big part to three Shallowater turnovers.
After the Mustangs opened the game with a three-and-out, Peaster took over and fairly established the offensive tone for the first half. The Greyhounds moved into Shallowater territory but settled for Cade McCullough’s 37-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead.
Peaster didn’t have a single offensive play on longer than 17 yards in the first half, but the Greyhounds were more efficient than anything else as they ran 39 plays in the first half to Shallowater’s 17. That appeared to take effect more obviously in the second half.
“Our kids know that defensively it’s our job to get off the field,” Vincent said. “That’s the bottom line. We knew we had to get off the field quicker tonight to give our offense as many opportunities as we possibly can.”
Early in the second quarter, Shallowater got down to the Peaster 7-yard line on a 33-yard completion from Cooper Martin to Maddox McDonald. The Mustangs faced a third-and-goal from the 1 out of the jumbo package after offensive lineman Gerrit Boschma took the ball out of the wildcat and gained five yards.
On the next play, though, Boschma couldn’t handle a low shotgun snap and Peaster’s Slayte Robertson pounced on the loose ball to kill the drive.
The Mustangs looked like they had taken the lead on the next possession when Martin got out of the pocket and hit Gavin Guajardo down the sideline, and Guajardo did the rest in taking the ball to the end zone to complete what looked like a 69-yard scoring play. However, it was called back due to a holding penalty.
“There were some penalties that we had,” Vincent said. “That’s hidden yardage that you don’t think about. We also didn’t win the turnover battle as a team. We’ve got to take more footballs away. You have to give their defense credit.”
Later in the half, Shallowater drove into Peaster territory and Martin threw toward the goal line, but Peaster’s Mark Tullous grabbed the second of his three interceptions of the game and returned it to the Shallowater 46. That set up the only touchdown of the half, as Luke Gray hit Kaden Albert on a 6-yard scoring pass with five seconds left in the half to make it 10-0.
Shallowater moved the ball sporadically in the second half and Peaster struggled for yardage as well. The longer the game went on though, the more apparent it was that the Greyhounds were winning that battle.
“I was not expecting to hold (the Mustangs) to zero knowing how explosive their quarterback is,” Peaster coach Trevor Owens said. “They really moved the ball up and down the field. We got some breaks turnover wise and played to the extreme some bend but don’t break defense. We knew that their four best defensive linemen also played on the offense so it was a question of if we could grind them out and eventually bust one, but we never did bust one.”
After a scoreless third quarter, Peaster added an insurance score with 8:29 left on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Gray to McCullough, but when the extra point attempt failed, it was 16-0 and the Mustangs were still down only two scores.
Shallowater threatened again as Gray hit Guajardo for gains of 24 and 21 yards to put the ball at the Peaster 12. On a second and goal from the 10, Gray found Maddox McDonald in the back corner of the end zone for a score, but a crackback block was called, moving the ball back to the 25.
The Mustangs got to the Peaster 4, but on fourth-and-two, Gray was stopped a yard short of a first down on a keeper, and Shallowater never got the ball back.
It was a far cry from how the season ended last year for these two teams when they met in the area round. Shallowater won 41-21, but due to graduation, Peaster was able to turn the tables this year.
“I think the teams left in our region are all good and I think all these game could go either way with the teams that are left,” Vincent said. “This game could have gone the other way tonight with those two scores, but I will tell you where this group started with losing 29 seniors a year ago and how hard they continued to get better, they did some really special things off the field which will help them down the road.”