Before Friday’s firstround playoff game with Corpus Christi Ray at Boerne ISD Stadium, Greyhounds coach Brett Sawyer said the Texans were no slouches and would present a challenge to BHS even though they were the fourth-place team in their district and only went 2-3 in league play.
Sawyer was right about that after the Texans put a scare in the Greyhounds and made it a one-possession game late in the third with Boerne up 21-13. BHS responded just the way Sawyer was hoping after the Hounds tallied the final 21 points of the fourth quarter to secure a 42-13 victory over the Texans with a strong finish.
Afterward, Sawyer tipped his hat to the Corpus Christi school for making them earn that win.
“They’re athletic and they have good skill position players. They do a good job with what they have, and they had momentum,” he said. “We just didn’t close them out when we needed to and had the chance.”
Boerne (10-1) has won 10 straight and faces Mission Pioneer Thursday (7-4) in Laredo at Bill Johnson Student Activity Center, 7 p.m. The Diamondbacks defeated Edcouch-Elsa in the first round, 42-21.
Early in Friday’s game it looked like the Greyhounds were going to cruise to an easy win after they jumped out to a 21-0 lead after scoring on three of their first four possessions.
Rory Hotchkin ran into the end zone from five yards out less than two minutes into the game. On Boerne’s next drive, quarterback Grant Sweeney tossed a 15-yard TD pass to Brock Hierholzer, and it was 14-0 to end the first quarter.
In the second stanza, Sweeney capped an 8-play, 80-yard drive with an 8-yard run, and the Diego Jimenez extra point made it 21-0 with 5:49 left until halftime.
But the Texans got on the board in the final play before the break. With just a few seconds left on the clock, Huzefa Ullah hauled in a Tripp Thompson pass and headed for the end zone. At that point, the clock hit 0:00 and Ullah had to score, or the half would end with the Texans being shutout.
Several Greyhound defenders met Ullah near the goal line, and the Ray receiver, along with some help from his teammates, pushed the pile forward and into the end zone for a touchdown. Boerne blocked the extra point and almost scored on a wild play to end the half with BHS leading 21-6.
That TD right before the half must have given the Texans some momentum because they took the opening kickoff in the third quarter and pieced together a masterful drive. Ray marched 75 yards on 12 plays and burned 7:21 off the clock, chewing up nearly two-thirds of the quarter on that one possession.
The Corpus Christi school capped the drive with a 6-yard run from Brian McCullum and all of a sudden it was 21-13 in the middle of the third quarter.
Because of Ray’s time-consuming drive, each team only had the ball one time in the third quarter. Boerne got a break on its only possession in the quarter after the Greyhounds punted on a 4th and 12. A Ray player accidentally touched the punt, and the Greyhounds recovered the ball at the Texans’ 21-yard line to give it back to Boerne. It was basically a gain of 35 yards on the play.
The Greyhounds cashed in on the turnover and scored five plays later after Jeff Morrison hit paydirt a 9-yard sprint on the first play of the fourth quarter, and the Hounds had some breathing room at 28-13.
Later in the quarter, Ray punted and Boerne scored again after Will Traylor reeled in an 11-yard pass from Sweeney to end an 11-play drive, and it was a 35-13 lead with 4:12 left. On that drive, BHS faced a 4th and 1 at their own 39 and went for it. If they didn’t get it, the Texans would have had a short field and could’ve cut into the lead. Boerne ran it and got the one yard needed to move the chains and scored seven plays later.
“I felt like they were taking a lot of time getting their call in from the sidelines and if we’re going to go for it, let’s tempo them when they’re not ready and it worked out. We felt like we could get a yard on them,” Sawyer said. “You never know if it’s a good call until after it’s over. If we don’t get it, it’s a bad call and if we get it, it’s a good call.”
Morrison tacked on one final insurance touchdown for the Greyhounds with less than a minute left in the game to seal the victory.
The BHS defense played shutout ball in the fourth quarter and turned Ray away on its three possessions of the period, while Boerne’s offense tallied three TDs in the final stanza.
“We want to be able to do that, finish strong, that’s how you win games,” Sawyer said.
NOTES: Friday’s home game was only the second time the Greyhounds hosted a playoff contest at BISD Stadium in their history. They did it last year for the first time and won, so they are 2-0 at home in the postseason after Friday’s victory. “I don’t want to be the guy to end that streak, I promise you,” Sawyer said.
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