For 48 hours heading into their regular season finale against archrival Tascosa, the Amarillo High Sandies experienced enough drama to fill an entire season of “Yellowstone.”
By the end of Friday night in a Plainview convenience store parking lot however, they had an ending worthy of a spot in the middle of the current holiday season airing on the Hallmark Channel.
After gearing up to play Tascosa in the final game of the District 2-5A Division I season to determine the district’s No. 2 playoff seed and a home game to open the postseason, Amarillo High was relegated to needing a lot of help and some luck to make the playoffs. The Sandies were discovered to have used an ineligible player and forced to forfeit six of their previous seven wins, including three of their four district victories.
Taking out some frustrations offensively, Amarillo High was just about unstoppable, particularly the senior aerial connection of quarterback Jett Lopez and wide receiver Austin Sluder, who played the biggest parts in a 63-21 rout which was one of the most lopsided games in the six decades plus of their rivalry.
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That was only half the story. After the game Amarillo High (2-8, 2-4 in district) along with Caprock and Lubbock High met at Plainview for a three-way coin flip to determine who would take the district’s fourth and final playoff spot since Lubbock had beaten Lubbock Coronado. In an odd-man-in situation, AHS coach Chad Dunnam flipped tails while Lubbock and Caprock flipped heads, giving the Sandies the most improbable of playoff berths.
“I’m an emotional wreck admitted Dunnam after winning the flip. “We have a meeting at 10 a.m. with some parents and kids and there’s going to be some hard conversation. There’s also going to be a celebration. Destiny was in our favor and while we did something wrong it was with a pure heart. I’m just so thankful it was in God’s plan.”
Just how ordained a playoff bid was an be debated at a later time. What is inarguable is that the Sandies will take on El Paso El Dorado next week in the bidistrict round as a team with one of the most misleading 2-8 records in state history.
The Sandies had been piling up yards and points on opponents for a good chunk of the season, and while they had to forfeit wins, their yardage totals were still out there for all to see, which Tascosa (6-4, 4-2) painfully discovered.
Lopez and Sluder were playing like it was their last home game no matter the circumstances. The two hooked up for five scoring passes and sparked a burst of 27 unanswered points to close the half as Amarillo High led 34-7 at halftime.
It was another ridiculously huge night statistically for Lopez, who’s become the most prolific passer in Amarillo High’s long and prestigious history. He completed 17-of-25 passes for 384 yards and for the second straight week threw seven touchdown passes, tying his own school record.
“Our intentions were always to win this game from week one to week 10,” Lopez said. “When we figured out the news Wednesday it pushed us even more. Austin Sluder, Oliver Parsons, Tate Blackwell are all my guys and Austin is one of my best friends.”
Amarillo High struck first through the air and it wasn’t from Lopez to Sluder. It was a 37-yard strike from Lopez to sophomore Jeb Grammer for his first career touchdown as Amarillo High went up 7-0.
Tascosa responded and it looked like it would be a ball game. The Rebels marched down the field and cashed in on Tendrick Sargent’s 11-yard run to tie it 7-7.
But it was all Sandies, and specifically, Lopez to Sluder after that.
Amarillo High answered Tascosa’s score quickly, as Lopez hit Sluder on a 23-yard score to make it 14-7. A little over two minutes later, the Sandies struck with the game’s most exciting play, as Sluder beat Tascosa’s secondary to haul in a bomb, got the ball stripped then retrieved it to complete a 62-yard scoring play and make it 21-7.
Late in the second quarter, Lopez and Sluder almost seemed to be teasing the Rebels, as Lopez lofted the ball into the end zone and Sluder reached up to grab it for scores of 17 and 19 yards. The last score made it 34-7 with 47 seconds left in the first half.
“We felt a lot of pressure a few days ago, but after this happened our emotions got fired up and we were pretty upset about everything,” said Sluder, who had eight catches for 188 yards. “We just handle adversity well.”
Sluder said that connecting so frequently with Lopez wasn’t necessarily the main point of the game plan and that it just evolved.
“I wasn’t really expecting anything pregame,” Sluder said. “I felt really normal, but the first couple of passes I caught got me going and boosted my confidence and got (Lopez) going too.”
Tascosa, meanwhile, never got going offensively. The Rebels ran for a respectable 271 yards on the night, but rarely broke any significant plays.
There wasn’t a whole lot of incentive for Tascosa once it was ruled Amarillo High had forfeited all but one win and that the Sandies couldn’t possibly play a home game next week. The Rebels automatically moved into the district’s No. 2 seed and will host El Paso Parkland at Bivins next Friday.
“I know we didn’t play very well and I can’t even understand why,” Tascosa coach Ken Plunk said. “I know that (the Sandies) played well and they did a good job of getting their kids ready to play we did a poor job of getting ours ready to go. As a result we took a pretty sound beating but we’re going to move on.”
Amarillo High, on the other hand, had no clue about its destiny until that fateful coin flip that Dunnam had to take a drive after the game to make. Only when Lubbock beat Coronado 42-35 did the Sandies even know they’d have a chance to do that.
“It’s been a really rough 48 hours,” Dunnam said. “We started off this morning with a team meeting and talked about how we loved each other. None of this was our kids fault and you never know when this might be your last play. We told our kids to block all this out an go live in the moment and that they had the opportunity to live the greatest couple of hours of your life.”
Overshadowed in the aerial circus led by Lopez and Sluder was another typically outstanding performance by running back Jude Dunavin. He ran for a game-high 181 yards and two second half touchdowns on just 13 carries, and also had four catches for 119 yards and a touchdown.
Because of those 181 yards on the ground, the senior speedster also set a special milestone becoming the Sandies all-time leading rushing leader with 2,541 yards.
Deandre Sanders led Tascosa with 104 yards on 10 carries. That’s good news for a Rebel squad which desperately needs to get some momentum back if the season is going to continue beyond next week.
“I’m going to wake up tomorrow and it’s done,” Plunk said. “It was a stressful week and we didn’t answer the bell, but tomorrow we’re good. It wasn’t fun but we’re moving on.”
All games are must-wins from here on out, but for Amarillo High it started a week earlier than expected. They have to feel prepared for the playoffs now.
“I thought we had it in us,” Dunnam said. “We’re getting better at the right time. I think we’ve got a good football team right now.”
Caprock remained alive until after flip, Monterey locked up No. 3-seed
Entering the week, Caprock (3-7, 2-4) went into Thursday’s game against Lubbock Monterey (5-5, 3-3) figuring that it would get in with a win and go home with a loss. After Amarillo High’s forfeits though, Monterey’s 34-28 victory over the Longhorns gave the Plainsmen the district’s No. 3 seed and left one last spot available going into Friday night.
Both Caprock and Amarillo High needed Lubbock to win to force a coin flip when it was over, and Caprock coach Rowdy Freeman and Lubbock coach Juan Rodriguez drove to Plainview along with their respective athletic directors (Amarillo ISD’s Brad Thiessen and Lubbock ISD’s Mike Meeks) to determine their respective fates.
Had Caprock beaten Monterey, the Longhorns would have taken the No. 3 seed. Monterey took a 17-point lead in the third quarter and was able to hold on for the win.
Deuce Moore led the Plainsmen with 150 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries. Quarterback Juan De La Cruz provided the bulk of the offense for Caprock, running for 126 yards and all four Longhorn touchdowns on 11 carries, including three in the second half.