The difference is, Sunray wants it, and Albany has it, and that’s what separates these two teams heading into the state semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday at Lubbock’s PlainsCapital-Park Lowrey Field.
Sunray hasn’t been this far in the postseason since 2007, and the Bobcats (12-2) have never reached a state championship game. Albany (14-0), meanwhile, is the defending state champion and has won 25 straight games, and a 26th would place the Lions at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium next week for a crack at a second straight state title.
This would seem to give Albany an edge going into the week. Yet, both teams carry undeniable momentum into this week, and in Sunray’s case, it’s been building since at least the beginning of two-a-days.
“I feel like it was something we all knew was possible” Sunray coach Wesley Boatmun said. “We knew we had a lot coming back. A talented class of sophomores carried us to 9-3 with a one-point loss to New Home. We knew that could have been us just as easily and there’s no reason why it can’t be this year with all the pieces coming back.
“We’re fortunate to be here and we feel like we’re in the spot that we wanted and now it’s just a matter of taking care of business.”
The cliché of being a year older and a year wiser applies to the Bobcats in just about every way, and the fact they’re still playing in the first full week of December is proof of that.
It hasn’t just been about ability for Sunray. Boatmun attributes a lot of his team’s success this season to good luck with injuries and eligibility.
“We talked a lot about maturity,” Boatmun said. “We were really young last year. We didn’t always make great choices on or off the field and we knew that if we grew up a little bit that would take us a long way. Being mentally tough was key and beyond that we tried to emphasize some unfinished business.”
That included a rematch with New Home in the area round, the same team who beat the Bobcats 22-21 to eliminate them last season. This season, New Home entered the game undefeated.
“There’s certainly a mental component to it, Boatmun said. “We were probably more focused or New Home than any game just because that’s the game that sent us out the year before. We had a lot of time to chew on that so I think the focus was much more intense. When we won that game we really hit the switch.”
Since then, there’s been no off switch for the Bobcats, or so it seems. They got here by destroying Clarendon, who had won 10 straight games, 67-6 in last week’s state quarterfinal at Happy State Bank Stadium.
The Bobcats dominated on both sides of the ball, outgaining Clarendon by a 617-173 count. As has been the case for the last three seasons, junior quarterback Armando Lujan spearheaded the offense, completing 18-of-24 passes for 357 yards and seven touchdowns while running for an eighth.
Lujan has put up numbers this season which seem like some kind of string of artificial intelligence typos. He’s thrown for 4,007 yards and 60 touchdowns while running for 968 yards and 20 TDs.
It’s not as if Lujan does it all himself for the Bobcats. There are four receivers with at least 42 catches, and senior Damian Barragan (955 yards) and junior Dawson Bennett (920) could both go over 1,000 yards against Albany, and leading rusher Arnold Mendoza (973 yards) could give Sunray two 1,000-yard rushers on the season if Lujan does the same.
“These guys when they came in as freshmen, we introduced a new offense,” Boatmun said. “It wasn’t going to be an immediate success but the foundation of it all was going to be on Air Raid principles as far as being able to throw the football and use the whole field. That’s not to say that we weren’t going to be able to run the ball, but that’s not the foundation of the offense.”
Sunray’s opponent might be the exact opposite, but is equally effective. The Lions like to run the ball but have shown they can pass it as well.
“I think they’re as good as any team we’ve played,” Boatmun said of the Lions. “We’ve had some good looks this year. We’ve played Stratford and New Home. We’ve been tested so I feel like those looks have prepared us for the physical type of team Albany is.”
The Lions are hardly one-dimensional offensively, though. Quarterback Chip Chambers has thrown for 2,234 yards and 33 touchdowns and has two excellent targets in Cason Fairchild (56 catches, 1,041 yards, 13 TDs) and Branson Beal (32-470, 8 TDs).
“We had a good nucleus coming back for sure,” said Albany coach Denny Faith, who in his 42nd year at the school has one of the more storied active coaching careers in the state. “We had some young kids who were going to have to step up and we were going to have to count on them and they’ve done that.
“Our kids have been able to meet every challenge so far. We’ve played some really good football teams. To be able to take their best shots and still come out on top has been very gratifying.”
The task would seem quite daunting for the Bobcats. They weren’t the only team to rout an opponent in a state quarterfinal, as Albany advanced by beating Collinsville 52-14 last week.
Collinsville also liked to throw the ball a lot, something Faith thinks will help his defense against Sunray.
“Hopefully that’s prepared us for what we’re going to see,” Faith said. “(The Bobcats) are outstanding, there’s no doubt about it. They have a very physical offensive line and they can do a lot of things to you offensively. They can run with power and still spread you out with the way they throw the football.”
The Bobcats have their work cut out for them as well. It might help their confidence that they also played another 14-0 team in Stratford prior to district play, and came close to beating another team playing in the state semis this week, as Stratford is in the 2A Division II state semis.
Boatmun knows what his team is up against, but doesn’t want to put too much pressure on anybody over the situation.
“We want to play our best game, but I don’t think the message is we’ve got to play our best game against these guys,” Boatmun said. “We’ve got to go out and play our game against these guys the way that we’ve been coached to do it and know how we can. We don’t have to play perfectly, but we have to take care of the football and execute our schemes.”