Waters lives offensive lineman’s dream by scoring on a trick play

LAREDO — Boerne High doesn’t run trick plays all that often, but when they do, they seem to work to perfection.

The Greyhounds used a trick play against Alamo Heights in their district game on Sept. 26 that resulted in a touchdown, and in Thursday’s playoff contest, BHS ran another trick play that produced another TD.

Against Pioneer on Thursday, Boerne ran the hook and ladder play. Quarterback Grant Sweeney tossed the ball to wide receiver Eli Nikolas, who then lateraled the ball back to lineman Jonny Waters, who scored on the play as he ran down the sideline.

Waters said he lived a lineman’s dream by scoring an offensive touchdown.

“Grant does a great job of throwing it to Eli and Eli laterals to me, and all I see is green grass ahead,” he said. “I go in and I score and everyone is erupting, everyone is going crazy. It’s the best play of my life, it was awesome.”

Greyhounds head coach Brett Sawyer said they’ve worked on that play in practice and were just waiting for the right time to run it.

“We’ve probably run that over 100 times in practice. We rep it all the time and the linemen love it. We’ve just never had a situation where we felt we could call it,” Sawyer said. “Their coverage gave us a little bit of room to do it, so it was fun.”

Waters said he was never sure if they were ever going to use the play in an actual game.

“I thought maybe, and then we didn’t call it for a few weeks, and then we actually called it and my jaw dropped,” he said. “I was so happy, I was a little nervous.”

It was the first touchdown of his career. “Probably first and only,” Waters added. Against Alamo Heights on Sept. 26, Sweeney pitched the ball to wide receiver Zach Freasier, who then tossed a scoring strike to Eli Nikolas against a drawn in secondary to help the Greyhounds beat the Mules that day, 37-35.

It was the first district loss for Alamo Heights since 2019.

Also, against the Mules, the Greyhounds hit a Hail Mary pass at the halftime buzzer after Sweeney scrambled around and bought some time before he heaved the ball about 50 yards into the end zone.

On the other end of the throw, Nikolas climbed the ladder and outjumped all the defenders on the play for a touchdown.

While not a trick play, the Hail Mary only works about eight percent of the time, but the Greyhounds made it work that night.