The Palo Duro Dons had 9 1/2 bad minutes to start their Class 5A Division II bidistrict game against El Paso Burges on Thursday night at Dick Bivins Stadium.
They had almost no bad minutes after that.
Palo Duro had trouble doing anything offensively for two possessions against Burges. After that, Dons had no trouble doing just about anything when it counted.
They never let Burges get into the game and rolled to a 64-7 victory for their 10th straight win and advanced to the area round next week against the winner of Friday’s game between Celina and Lovejoy.
It’s the second straight year Palo Duro (10-1) has advanced to the area round and so far the Dons have lived up to their preseason hype. PD coach Eric Mims didn’t have much of an explanation for his team’s less than stellar start but was pleased with everything else.
“I don’t know if it was jitters, I know we just didn’t start out worth a flip,” Mims said. “We’ve got to come out and play better offensively to start the game. Defensively we weathered the storm, but offensively we’ve just got to be more consistent.”
On their first eight plays of the game, the Dons did next to nothing offensively. However, they broke a big play and were unable to stop, as three big punt returns by Kyron Brown gave them short fields and sparked them to five straight scoring drives before the half and a 36-0 lead going into the locker room.
Brown’s first good return put the ball at the Burges 39-yard line. Palo Duro faced a third-and-11 when quarterback Julian Reese II took over for a bit.
Reese dropped back to pass but was forced to scramble, and found a crease up the right side along the sideline and sprinted 40 yard for a touchdown to give the Dons an 8-0 lead. They seemed to settle in after that.
“We came out flat and didn’t make some plays at the beginning of the game that we needed to make,” Mims said. “(Reese) sparked us with that big scramble and we started playing a little better in spots. We just weren’t very consistent offensively to begin with.”
Palo Duro’s offense generally starts with Reese, and when he makes a play, everything seems to fall into place after that. His run to start the scoring against Burges (3-8) might be Exhibit A of that.
“It gave us a huge spark,” Reese said. “We needed to convert because we did nothing those first two drives so we needed to get the team going. We just kept going on a run from there and executing the game plan.”
Reese again showed his big play ability with his arm, completing 9-of-14 passes for 202 yards and three touchdowns to Brown. However, it was his legs, and improvisation which got the Dons going.
Palo Duro forced another Burges punt and got another good return from Brown down to the Burges 23. On the next play, Reese appeared to bobble the snap and was trying to escape pressure by running to his right, and at the last second pitched the ball back to Eric Mims Jr., the coach’s son. Mims made the most of the play, going all the way for a touchdown to boost Palo Duro’s lead to 15-0 only 23 seconds into the second quarter.
“We were going to throw (Mims) the bubble initially but I thought I could outrun them, and when I turned around he was just there and I tossed it to him,” Reese said. “I’m just doing stuff I’m very confident in.”
Reese insists that the team hasn’t worked on that particular play in practice. However, the younger Mims said he was ready to run it.
“You all know Julian Reese, he’s going to do something and he’s going to shock everybody in the stands,” Mims said. “It was designed to run but he was about to get tackled so he threw a backward pass to me and I just hit the jets. It was actually very surprising.”
After that, it seemed as if the Dons could get away with anything. Following another good Brown return down to the Burges 28, they made it three straight plays from scrimmage in which they scored on a run, as Raymond Johnson rumbled up the middle for a touchdown 1:26 after Mims scored to make it 22-0.
From there, Brown decided it was time to stop setting up scores and making them himself. He concluded the next two longer drives by catching touchdown passes from Reese of 2 and 65 yards to make it 36-0 at halftime.
For good measure, on Palo Duro’s first possession of the second half, Brown caught a 39-yarder from Reese to make it 43-0. Brown only caught three passes but they went for 106 yards and three scores.
“I think (returning punts) is a very reliable aspect of my game,” Brown said. “It’s not something which is worked on often but it comes instinctive having the ball in my hand. After catching short passes on mesh routes I knew I had to do something big. That really set us up physically and mentally.”
The Dons again showed they had a balanced attack. They ran for 313 yards and threw for 216, but the defense may have been even more impressive.
In the first haff, Burges didn’t get a single first down of its own accord after the first possession. The Mustangs made two first downs in the final minutes of the half thanks to two Palo Duro penalties.
Burges finally scored on a 9-yard scoring pass from Angel Canales to Jake Paniagua late in the fourth quarter. For the game, though, they had a meager 77 yards of totat offense, including seven on the ground.
“The defense has been solid all year long,” Mims said. “In 11 games they’ve been consistent and they did what they always do. When the offense in a lull we can always rely on or defense against the run and the pass.”
Sophomore Caddyn Toombs-Jackson gave a glimpse of what fans can expect in the next two years with nifty touchdown runs of 57 and 22 yards in the third quarter, and actually led the Dons in rushing with 96 yards on only three carries.
Photos by Roy Wheeler:
