What’s another couple hours when you’ve come this far?
After a lengthy delay for nearby lightning strikes, the Aledo Bearcats (13-2) finished the task of knocking off No. 1 ranked Longview (14-1), 17-14, Saturday at John Kincaide Stadium in Dallas.
The win sends Aledo to its 11th state final in 14 seasons. In the previous 10 trips they brought home nine championships.
The Bearcats, whose 10 state championships (they also won one in 1998) are a state record, will meet College Station (13-2). The Cougars knocked off Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial 33-7 in Saturday’s other semifinal.
The championship game is Saturday at 11 a.m. at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
It was looking as if the Bearcats and Lobos would avoid the fate of a delay, unlike other teams throughout the North Texas area. Then, with 56 seconds remaining and Longview facing a second-down-and-16 from midfield, the teams were sent to their respective locker rooms and spectators to their cars and/or buses to wait out the stoppage.
With each nearby strike the delay clock resets to 30 minutes. Due to repeated strikes the clock kept resetting, thus the long delay.
On the final play before the delay, Lobos quarterback Jordan Allen was sacked for a 6-yard loss. When they returned to play, so did the pressure on him as he was forced into back-to-back incompletions, followed by a tipped pass by Christian Hillman that was caught for a 1-yard loss.
“We just walked in and said, ‘We’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing. It’s working in the second half,’” Aledo coach Tim Buchanan said. “Ansel (Din-Mbuh), (Bryon) Wheeler, (Lawson) and (Christian) Hillman did an unbelievable job getting pressure on the quarterback and didn’t give him a chance to get the ball off.”
Running back Caleb Pope said a lot of things were going through his and his teammates’ minds during the break, including the Lobos having struck for a pair of second-quarter touchdown passes that gave them a 14-3 halftime lead. However, he said there was confidence the defense could finish the job.
“We just talked about staying focused and staying on key until the end of the game, just finish,” he said.
Clay Murador gave Aledo a 3-0 lead after the first quarter with a 37-yard field goal, a period in which the Bearcats held the ball for eight and a half minutes. Longview struck back with touchdown passes of 27 and 55 yards from Allen to Jalen Hale in the second quarter. The first TD came after a deflected pass turned into an interception that set them up at the Aledo 39.
On the opening drive of the second half, however, Aledo began to regain control and on the fifth play, Hawk Patrick-Daniels broke out of a scrum and raced 60 yards to the end zone to make the score 14-10.
After being held to 7 yards on five carries in the first half, Patrick-Daniels led all rushers with 111 yards on 11 carries. His touchdown run was more than the 53 Aledo had on 16 carries in the entire first two quarters.
On the next possession after a Longview punt, the Bearcats went 65 yards in six plays, capped by a 10-yard TD from Davhon Keys.
“We figured out who to block and who to block them with at halftime,” Buchanan said.
With less than three minutes remaining in the game, the Lobos reached the Aledo 29 before fumbling. The Bearcats’ Andrew Parkhurst fell on the loose ball.
Longview forced a punt that was held up by the heavy oncoming win, taking over at the Aledo 44 with 1:16 remaining and a timeout left. Following the sack they were forced to call their final timeout, ironically, seconds before the game was halted, which might have altered their strategy a bit coming out of the delay.
The Bearcats defense held the heralded Longview running game to 102 yards on 34 carries. They posted three sacks and seven tackles for loss, along with four other plays for zero yards.
Christian Hillman batted down the last Longview pass attempt of the game to seal the Bearcats' trip to state. Photo by Breleigh Mayer
A moment of excitement occurred on special teams when Murador fielded a bad snap on a punt attempt inside his own 10-yard line and scampered 24 yards for a first down as the third quarter was coming to an end. Though the Bearcats did eventually punt on the drive, Murador’s 51-yard boot gave Longview the ball on its own 20-yard line instead of around midfield.
“It was a really good football game. I’m gonna tell ya, Longview is a really good football team and John King’s a heck of a football coach,” Buchanan said.
The victory, Aledo’s 13th straight, puts them within one victory of completing a turnaround from an 0-2 start with another state title. The 2011 team overcame a 1-2 start to win 14 consecutive for a championship.
The game against College Station will be only the second meeting. The Cougars defeated the Bearcats 20-19 in the 2017 Class 5A Division II final.
John Kincaide Stadium, Dallas
| Aledo | 3 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 17 |
| Longview | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
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