A week after they were unable to maintain the upper hand, the Amarillo High Sandies made sure they kept it over the Caprock Longhorns on Thursday night at Dick Bivins Stadium.
Coming off a disappointing loss at Abilene High in which they frittered away a 21-point lead, the Sandies had a lot to prove in their District 2-5A Division I showdown with crosstown rival Caprock. This time the Sandies held on to their early lead and only increased it in the second half, as they cruised to a 45-10 victory.
Amarillo High improved to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in district play. It turned out to be exactly what the Sandies needed after letting a 21-0 lead slip away in last week’s devastating 24-21 loss in Abilene.
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“Any time you’re coming off of a loss you have no choice but to bounce back,” AHS coach Chad Dunnam said. “It was a tough loss but we’ve moved on. We have our eye on the prize and that’s the future. We can’t do anything about that one in the past and I’m proud of our kids tonight.”
Neither team lit it up offensively in a game where there were 10 first downs via penalty, with Amarillo High benefiting from seven of them. It was also a less than dazzling offensive performance by Amarillo High, who through the first six games seemed able to throw the ball around and run at will.
The Sandies did make a statement immediately, taking advantage of a short field after the opening kickoff and benefiting from a pass interference penalty for a first down. Jett Lopez flipped a 2-yard scoring pass to Jude Dunavin for a 7-0 lead.
Caprock (1-4, 0-2) responded with a drive into Amarillo High territory, and when it stalled, Noah Gloria salvaged things with a 40-yard field goal to cut it to 7-3. However, those were the only points in the first half for the Longhorns.
The Sandies never trailed despite the fact Caprock ran 61 plays to their 49. Dunavin got Amarillo High’s second touchdown of the half on a 10-yard run to take a 14-3 lead midway through the second quarter, and the Sandies ran only one more offensive play the rest of the half, a kneel down before the half ended.
At one point in the second quarter, Lopez completed six straight short passes, and Dunavin’s second touchdown was set up when the Sandies went uptempo and no-huddle with Lopez throwing to a variety of receivers to move the chains.
“We saw (Caprock) not subbing very fast and not getting lined up so we said let’s go uptempo,” Dunnam said. “It also provided a little shot of the arm. We can always go as fast as we want or as slow as we want, we practice it all the time.”
Amarillo High extended the lead to 21-3 only 85 seconds after Dunavin’s second touchdown when Creed Cavalier returned a punt 61 yards for a touchdown, as the Sandies return unit formed a wall along the sideline and Cavalier used it to go all the way.
Not bad for someone who just started returning punts this week. After the Sandies stopped the Longhorns on their first possession of the second half and forced another punt, Cavalier returned it 43 yards to Caprock’s 33-yard line.
On the next play, Lopez hit A.J. Randle for a touchdown to make it 28-3 and pretty much end the competitive phase of the game.
“I trust my teammates and I knew they were going to block,” Cavalier said. “That was the first time I’ve returned a punt this year. I feel like the momentum was definitely our way. At that point it was pretty much a chase game and (the Longhorns) were trying to come back.”
Caprock didn’t find an offensive rhythm after that initial field goal drive, not scoring again until a 63-yard pass from Juan De La Cruz to Aiden Suarez early in the fourth quarter after the game had long been decided.
The Longhorns had only 135 yards of offense on the night. They had negative 24 yards rushing in the second half, although that total is skewed by a bad shotgun snap which got away from De La Cruz and lost 27 yards.
Caprock had eight penalties for 81 yards, which might not seem so egregious until you consider that seven of them led to Amarillo High first downs.
“It’s been the story all year,” Caprock coach Rowdy Freeman said. “It’s not the little penalties or even the live ball stuff, it’s the extracurricular stuff and that falls 100 percent on me. We do some good things then we let teams off the hook. We preach all the time play the next play and we have to be able to handle bad plays and move on as well as handle good plays and move on.”
Amarillo High had a fairly pedestrian 293 yards of offense. The one constant element was Dunavin, who ran for a game-high 123 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries.
Dunavin’s second scoring run, a 14-yarder, capped a 21-point third quarter in which the Sandies built their lead to 42-3 and were able to used their subs almost the entire fourth quarter.
“I really like the way we came out in the second half,” Dunnam said. “I thought that was probably our best third quarter we’ve played in a long time so I’m really happy with that.”
Amarillo High will enjoy an open week next week before returning to district play at Lubbock Coronado the following week on Thursday.
“It always feels better after a win,” Dunnam said. “Winning’s hard. Sometimes we take it for granted. We got Caprock’s best performance and I thought they played hard and we handled that well.”