When you’re playing for an outright district championship, it might not seem like a winning formula to run half as many plays as your opponent and get outgained by 124 yards of offense.
So it was no surprise that at the end of Thursday night’s game between Palo Duro and Abilene Cooper to decide the District 2-5A Division II title at Dick Bivins Stadium that there was a 24-point difference between the two teams. It wasn’t in favor of who those numbers might indicate, though.
Despite being outdone statistically, Palo Duro was never topped on the scoreboard. The Dons used a number of big plays to put distance between themselves and Cooper, as they never trailed and rolled to a 52-28 victory for their ninth consecutive win to close the regular season.
It was the first district title for Palo Duro (9-1, 6-0 in district) in two decades and the first outright crown since 2004. The Dons will host an El Paso area school at Bivins in the bi-district round of the playoffs next week.
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That was the main thing Palo Duro coach and alum Eric Mims was focused on in the postgame celebration of one of the best regular seasons by an Amarillo ISD team in recent memory.
“That’s why they have banquets,” said Mims of how special the win was. “We’ve got to get ready next week for whoever we draw out of El Paso. We’ve got to put together a game plan. In banquets you sit back and look over the year, but right now is not the time for that.”
In other words, the Dons are still eating and aren’t ready for dessert yet. Since a 10-0 loss to crosstown rival Tascosa to open the regular season, Palo Duro hasn’t lost, and the Dons aren’t about to fix what isn’t broken.
The win mirrored Palo Duro’s victory over Plainview two weeks earlier, which the Dons won 55-25 despite running only 36 plays to Plainview’s 75 but pulled off several big plays. This time Cooper (6-4, 4-2) ran 80 plays to PD’s 40, but the Dons again made theirs count.
Palo Duro pulled off some big plays on both sides of the ball in the first half which proved all the difference in taking a 21-14 halftime lead.
The Dons wasted no time in making a statement, as on the first play from scrimmage, Julian Reese II hit Daniel Moses with a 65-yard touchdown pass for a 7-0 lead. That marked the start of a big first half for Reese, who also threw a 3-yard scoring pass to Moses early in the second quarter and ran 7 yards for a touchdown late in the first quarter.
“We’ve been working on that play all week,” said Reese of opening strike to Moses. “It was just chemistry. I was all ready for it when I knew we would have the ball first.”
It couldn’t have been a more dynamic opening for the Dons, but as spontaneous as it seemed, it was planned as designed all along.
“Our coaches are always really prepared and out guys do a great job on Saturdays of game planning,” Mims said. “They came up with that and said this is going to be our first play and this is why we need to attack them. The whole staff was sold that it could be a very big play for us and that it could score and it did.”
PD’s last two touchdowns of the half were set up by turnovers deep in Cooper territory. Reese’s run was set up when D’amarion Harris picked off Jaden Cedillo and returned the ball inside Cooper’s 5. The second Reese-to-Moses connection came the play after the Dons recovered a fumble by Cedillo.
Cooper, though, got back in the game on an impressive drive in which all but two plays were runs, concluding on a 5-yard run by Markquel Sims to cut it to 21-7.
Palo Duro looked like it would get ideal field position when Kyron Brown twisted around on the ensuing kickoff and returned it near midfield, but he was stripped of the ball and the Cougars recovered at PD’s 41. That set up Peyton Ewing’s 5-yard scoring run with a minute left in the half to cut it to 21-14.
To compound matters, Cooper got the second half kickoff and seemed primed to tie the game by driving the ball inside Palo Duro’s 10. However, the Dons stiffened to force a 26-yard field goal attempt by Daniel Asumani which missed, and Palo Duro grabbed momentum.
Darien Lewis scored on a 42-yard run on the ensuing drive to put the Dons up 28-14, and that put some pep back in the step of the offense.
“We preach brotherhood, but we came in at halftime and I looked at the Abilene Cooper coaches and said ‘I’m gonna kill y’all.'” said Lewis, as senior who has committed to North Carolina. “I simply told them I’m getting the ball and I’m putting the ball in the end zone. Playmakers show up when it’s time to show up.”
Less than two minutes later, Cooper cut the score to 28-21 on Carrillo’s 2-yard scoring run. Only a minute after that, though, Reese hit Lewis for a 14-yard scoring pass, starting a 24-0 run which clinched the game.
Reese, a junior, hit fellow junior Raymond Johnson V on a 34-yard scoring pass after stopping the Cougars on downs for a 42-21 lead, giving the Dons a comfortable cushion. That was the last of Reese’s four touchdown passes on the night, as he completed 11-of-15 for 211 yards.
“It’s a blessing,” Reese said. “We’ve been working on this since five years ago and now we’ve seen that it’s finally coming true we’re going to keep moving forward and no looking back. We’ve just learned the basics of the game to fight together. If we’re all on one page it slows down for the game.”
Johnson would also score Palo Duro’s last touchdown on a 15-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
The win was pretty much a capsule of what’s made the Dons so successful this season. They made big plays on offense and had a bend-but-don’t break defense which created five turnovers and survived giving up 443 yards.
To Mims, the bottom line was all that mattered at the end of night, and even with a short week against a Cooper team which had two weeks to prepare after the open week last week, he knew there was enough time for his team to get ready.
“We came from Wichita Falls last week and (the Cougars) were coming off a bye and everybody was like ‘Oh my goodness, they have the advantage and they’re going to be ready.'” Mims said. “I said ‘Guys, we’re going to play football.’ Let’s get ready for that and I guarantee you when those lights come on and the ball is kicked we’re going to be ready to play. The coaches did a great job of preparing the guys. I’m excited about how the kids played.”
The Dons already knew after last week’s win over Wichita Falls Legacy that the game against Cooper wasn’t going to be their last game at Bivins, as they had clinched no worse than a No. 2 seed in the district and the right to host a first round game.
That means for seniors like Lewis, who also had an interception on defense, there will be one more bow at Bivins. Difference this time is that it will be a week after most teams have played their final home game.
“This feels amazing,” Lewis said. “It’s been a long time coming and I’ve been on varsity four years and this is a surreal moment right here. This ain’t the end of the job. It’s not done.”
While Reese had an efficient game throwing the ball, Palo Duro didn’t really have any major offensive stars against Cooper. The Dons didn’t produce a 100-yard rusher or receiver.
Cooper had the bigger offensive numbers, but they didn’t translate into victory. Ewing had a game-high 149 yards rushing on 24 carries, and Zaylon Johnson had two catches for 115 yards, including a 62-yard scoring catch from Carrillo with over a minute left which concluded the scoring.