So similar were Tascosa and Canyon in Friday night’s game at Happy State Stadium that it was no surprise that things got as close as they could in the end.
With 46 seconds remaining in the game, Canyon scored a touchdown to pull to within a point of Tascosa with the conversion pending. The options were to play for the win or the tie, and the Eagles opted for the former.
Unfortunately for Canyon, the gamble came up snake-eyes, as running back Austin Turner was stopped about a foot short of a two-point conversion, leaving the Eagles a point short in Tascosa’s 28-27 victory.
The end result had to be a relief for Tascosa (1-1) considering what happened a week earlier in a season-opening 38-7 loss at Odessa Permian. It was a far more hair-raising ending than the Rebels would have preferred, but it got them in the W column.
“The best thing that came out of this game is that we won and we found a way to do it,” Tascosa coach Ken Plunk said. “We didn’t really didn’t get down on ourselves and we gave up a really good drive by Canyon. I thought we had them on the ropes and they just kept mashing and running and they were pretty impressive. I was proud in the end and I think Canyon should be proud as well.”
The stage was set midway through the fourth quarter when the Rebels mounted a highly Tascosaesque drive to break a 21-21 tie. Quarterback Brayden Lineman scored on his third 1-yard run of the night to give the Rebels a 28-21 lead with 6:01 left in the game, concluding a 56-yard march which came entirely on the ground.
Canyon (1-1) responded with a methodical 75-yard march, showing that the Eagles could also play the ball control game. Ironically, the payoff came on a 17-yard scoring pass from Brox Hacker to Will Kilgore (the second scoring connection between the two in the game) making the score 28-27.
There wasn’t any deliberation about what to do next. Canyon coach Matt Lovorn decided his team was going to win or lose the game right then and there.
“Just the momentum of the game after starting that drive back on our 25 (yard line) made it plain and simple,” Lovorn said. “We knew what we were doing to do to see if we could get the three yards.”
Turner, who ran for two scores in the first half and led Canyon with 93 yards on 15 carries, was the natural choice to try to win the game. He bulled his way at the left side of the Tascosa defense, but it seemed at least five Rebels were in place, as Turner got within a foot of the goal line before he was finally pushed back.
“I had no idea what they were going to run,” Plunk said. “I thought they were going to slip somebody in the flat so we were holding our edge defenders out there and they just ran right at us. I don’t blame them for doing that because we really hadn’t done a very good job up to that point of stopping them.”
One stop, though, was all the Rebels needed to keep the lead. Louis Slaughter-Brown recovered Canyon’s ensuing onside kick to preserve the win.
Those two scores in the final six minutes of the game broke a scoreless second half, which seemed surprising considering the offensive numbers both teams put up in the first half.
The styles of the two teams in the first half were just about indistinguishable but equally effective. They only punted once each and were tied 21-21 at halftime thanks largely to heavily ground-oriented attacks.
Canyon and Tascosa both scored on their first possessions by gaining all of their yards on their respective possessions by rushing. The host Eagles went up 7-0 on a 1-yard run by Turner. Tascosa answered with a 1-yard run by Lineman.
The game might have been Lineman’s coming out party as a capable operator of Tascosa’s patented flexbone offense. He ran for 99 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries and completed both of his passes for 30 yards.
“We have a young team and it’s just nice to get some more experience under our belts,” Lineman said. “I love to operate that offense. It’s just trusting your keys, making the right reads and trusting your teammates. We worked a lot harder this week in practice preparing for this game.”
Tascosa led 21-14 after Lineman’s second scoring run with 3:41 left in the first half. Ironically, the biggest gainer for either team in the game came through the air and it was huge, as Hacker hit Kilgore on a 49-yard scoring pass with 2:19 left in the half to force the 21-21 tie before halftime.
The intent was established early offensively by both teams, as they combined for only 10 passes the entire game. Considering the backgrounds of Plunk, who’s established the Rebels as a run-first team, and Lovorn, who continued much the same tradition at Stratford before coming to Canyon, that was no surprise.
Plunk particularly thinks it was situational football where his team improved against the Eagles.
“It was conversion downs,” Plunk said. “Last week we turned it over twice and got stopped on fourth down twice. If they’d stopped us on the fourth down (on the game-winning drive) it might have been a different story. The thing we price ourselves on is we’re going to continue to keep getting better and better.”
The teams exchanged punts in the third quarter before the Rebels got the ball at their own 44 in the final minute of the quarter. What followed was a signature drive when it counted to take the lead.
All of Tascosa’s yards came running the ball on that possession, and Lineman converted a key fourth-and-one on a keeper inside the Canyon 15. His score shortly after that put the Rebels on top.
“That is kind of a typical Tascosa drive,” Plunk said. “It got us a win and kept our defense on the sideline for awhile.”
When Tascosa’s defense got back on the field again, it was the Eagles who answered the call. They got in a position to win, but came up just short.
The final result for the Eagles in their home opener was disappointing, especially after crushing Snyder 59-13 on the road a week earlier to start the season. What Lovorn saw from his team against the Rebels, though, was just as important as a win.
“We got so much better tonight,” Lovorn said. “We got better tonight than we got last week and that’s the key point for us. What we need are good nondistrict ball games, and if we get a win out of it, awesome, but tonight we know we still got better.”
Both teams will play at Dick Bivins Stadium next week, as Canyon will play Caprock on Thursday, and the next night Tascosa will face Palo Duro.
Photo gallery by Roy Wheeler:
