It looked like the Palo Duro Dons made a bold pregame decision Thursday night at Dick Bivins Stadium: If we’re going to win our first playoff game in 11 years, let’s make it a big one.
After winning nine straight games to close the regular season and earn the District 2-5A Division II championship and the right to host a Class 5A Division II bi-district playoff game, the Dons made sure they and their fans were perfectly and home and El Paso Hanks wasn’t the least bit comfortable. Palo Duro took control of the game with a dominant second quarter, scoring 35 straight points to close the first half and made the second half a mere formality in cruising to a 56-7 victory, the school’s first playoff win since 2014.
The win sets up the Dons (10-1) in next week’s area round against the winner of Friday night’s game between Mansfield Timberview and defending state champion Anna, tentatively scheduled for next Friday at Wichita Falls.
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It was appopriate that a Palo Duro alum, Eric Mims, was leading the Dons on the sideline in the same place he played his home games. In his fifth year as head coach of the PD program after a stint as an assistant at powerhouse Duncanville, Mims is seeing his plan come to fruition in turning the Dons into a contender.
“This is why I came home,” Mims said. “This is what I envisioned. I saw this as being what Palo Duro should be. That’s what I’ve always known Palo Duro should be.”
Now everybody in town, and certainly several people beyond, have to be paying attention. All the elements which have added up to the Dons having their best season in over two decades were on display, particularly over the last three quarters.
A game which looked like it would be competitive one play into the second quarter turned extremely quickly. Palo Duro broke a tie with 35 points in the second quarter to take a highly comfortable 42-7 lead at halftime.
The Dons took advantage of a short field with three running plays to get on the board, as Raymond Johnson V scored on an 11-yard run to go up 7-0. Hanks (6-5) got back in the game on the first play of the second quarter when Jordan Morales hit Zack Kania on a 21-yard scoring pass to tie it 7-7. That, however, was the highlight for the Knights.
Julian Reese II and the passing game took over the rest of the half for Palo Duro. Reese took turns throwing touchdown passes to Kyron Brown and Eric Mims Jr.
Reese, a junior, has been particularly hot throwing the ball as the season has progressed. He completed his first eight passes and torched the Knights by completing 18-of-23 passes for 341 yards.
“We just keep the ball moving,” Reese said. “We knew it was going to be great if we’d just execute the game plan. We had to wake up. We should have never let them score.”
Reese is in his second year as Palo Duro’s starting quarterback, and Mims has more or less given him the keys to the offense to do as he likes.
“He’s done a great job running the offense,” Mims said of Reese. “He’s done a spectacular job of knowing when to run it, when to hold it and when to throw it. He’s in command of the offense and he’s making great decisions. We tell him in practice we have to live and die with whatever decisions you make and put the ball in your hands.”
Only 96 seconds after the Hanks score, Reese hit Kyron Brown for a 51-yard scoring pass which gave the Dons the lead for good. Later in the quarter, Reese and Brown connected on scores on 32 and 17 yards, the last of which came with 13 seconds left in the half to end the first half scoring.
It’s a testament to the efficiency of Palo Duro’s passing game that 10 Dons caught at least one pass against Hanks. However, Brown is emerging as the preferred big play receiver, as he finished with four catches for 112 yards.
“Making big plays like that brings a lot of momentum to the team and a lot of energy revolves around that,” Brown said. “In that moment I wasn’t really thinking of making a big play. It just comes naturally to me after training all year long. After the first few toichdowns we realized there were a lot of weaknesses we could exploit as a team.”
In between those scores, Reese hit Mims on a pair of 11 yards scoring passes.
Palo Duro was also tough defensively, giving up only 202 yards of offense. Hanks never seriously threatened to score again after the Dons took the lead.
Julian Reese wasn’t the only member of this family to throw a touchdown pass. In the third quarter, his younger brother Jordan Reese, a freshman, entered the game and threw a 10-yard scoring pass to Daniel Moses to conclude the scoring.
Jordan Reese gave PD fans a glimpse of what to expect at quarterback two years from now, as he completed 4-of-5 passes for 56 yards.
If early returns are any indication, Jordan looks like a worthy heir to the Reese quarterback tradtiion, as his father Julian Reese was quarterback of the indoor Amarillo Dusters and later coach of the Amarillo Venom. That’s likely where the younger Julian learned game preparation, which has been reflected in his growth from early September up to now.
“We just keep watching film and study and then it just clicks on the field” Julian Reese II said. “You practice how you play so you go 100 percent every day.”
That seems to sum up how the Dons have gotten here and haven’t lost since their season opening 10-0 defeat to Tascosa, who will host a Class 5A Division I playoff game at Bivins on Friday.
The Dons will surely celebrate this win over the weekend. Come Monday, though, the work will continue with knowledge that improvement is necessary to keep going after next week.
“Coaches are real picky,” Mims said. “We didn’t like the way the first quarter went with our defense. We just need to go out and play a cleaner game. We know that when we got the ball we’ve just got to go and do our job and the defense refocused and did their job the rest of the night.
“All in all we did what we were supposed to do. We just need to clean up the process.”