BUCKEYES CAGE THE VANDALS | Gilmer gets past Van, 31-23, in big 7-4A, DII showdown

By PHILLIP WILLIAMS

Exclusively for ETBlitz.com

GILMER – ‘Twas a night when the third-ranked Gilmer Buckeyes’ wargame was staged a few blocks from the rides at the annual East Texas Yamboree carnival, and the team procured its paeon by taking the vexing Van Vandals for a rib-rattling ride–but not quite according to the Buckeye blueprint.

Fueled by two critical purloined passes which eventually led to Buckeye touchdowns, Gilmer toted up a 28-7 lead, only to bewilderingly behold the visitors nearly make it vanish before finally vanquishing Van, 31-23, in a District 7 4-A Division II spellbinder at Jeff Traylor Stadium on Friday evening.

The outcome wasn’t sealed until the final minute, when Van’s 11th-hour surge was snuffed.

Van, which actually gathered upon the gridiron with a better overall record (5-1, 1-0 in district dustups) than the ballyhooed state defending kingpin Buckeyes (who were 4-2, 1-1), stormed back into the contest after the hosts were seemingly en route to a rout.

Gilmer, which reached Beulah Land on its first four possessions, led 7-0 and, after the Vandals deadlocked it 7-7, corralled 21 consecutive points before a Van field goal late in the first half made it 28-10 at Twirling Time.

Then the Vandal offense, as one press box inhabitant observed, proceeded to hog the pigskin in the second half as if it was life support machinery in an intensive care unit. A Gilmer team statistician calculated that, excluding punts, the visitors ran 74 plays on the night to the hosts’ 39, and possessed the ball 30 minutes to Gilmer’s 18!

Thus, should anyone adhere to the thesis that time of possession is the key factor to triumphing in football, be advised t’ain’t always so.

After seeing its lead pared to 28-23 with 9:07 left, Gilmer’s offense finally was galvanized to troop downfield enough that ace kicker Brayden Pate plunked a 32-yard field goal with 1:33 remaining. That meant Van would have to not only tally a TD, but a two-point conversion as well just to get the game into overtime.

However, the Vandal offense, which had ginned up a colossal comeback, couldn’t complete the task after returning the ensuing kickoff to its 25. Gilmer’s suddenly-invigorated defense snuffed the surge in four plays, forcing Van to yield possession on downs at its 24 and letting the hosts run out the clock in one play.

Before that, Van fans were reaching for their headache powders during much of the first half, and Buckeye backers were reaching for their Xanax during much of the second.

Gilmer runners Zade Taylor and Trillyon Butler tripped for two TDs each, and Pate airlifted all four PATs successfully before hoisting the field goal, but the hosts’ “Black Flag Defense,” despite yielding a massive amount of yardage and its second-half swoon, had a leading role in its team’s fulsome first-half rampage with the two aforementioned interceptions.

Van meanwhile relied heavily on its head coach’s twin sons, quarterback Jaxon Moffatt and runner Austin Moffatt, a combination that nearly buffaloed the Buckeyes although Jaxon suffered two devastating interceptions.

Gilmer took the opening kickoff and rumbled right downfield 72 yards to reach TD territory on Taylor’s 8-yard trip to the right with 9:53 left in Act I.

Van’s rapid response was a 71-yard TD trek which ended in Austin Moffatt’s 6-yard roll up the middle with 6:56 left in the inaugural quarter. Kicker Alden Moore banged the first of his two PATs to tie it.

Then the Buckeyes got a stranglehold on things long enough to arrest their foes for, uh, vandalism.

First, Butler whizzed 60 yards up the middle with stupefying speed and nobody near him to score with 5:34 still left in the first period.

Then the first of the two critical Van turnovers. Buckeye Brendan Webb filched a Jaxon Moffatt aerial, returning it to the Vandal 45 before Taylor eventually scooted for a two-yard TD. That wrote finis to an elongated offensive with 42 seconds still remaining in the opening quarter.

In the second quarter, QB Moffatt misfired again as Buckeye Tyler Hagler swiped another sling, returning it to the Vandal 48. That led to Butler’s 3-yard TD trip to the right with 5:08 left to Music Time, and it appeared the Buckeyes were going to commit genocide against the visitors as the score was 28-7.

Van, however, wasn’t about to hoist the white flag.

With only 21 seconds left till intermission, Moore slammed the 25-yard field goal to ease the deficit to 28-10.

After a first half with no punts, the offenses slowed down enough in the third quarter to finally awake their punters to go on the field some. Van, though, was going to start scoring again and make what had appeared to be a budding blowout turn into a thriller.

QB Moffatt began atoning for the interceptions by zipping a 13-yard TD to Foster Rust with 1:13 left in the third, making it 28-17 after the PAT. (Gilmer blocked the initial kick, but had it negated by a penalty.) That finished up a 64-yard, 8-play travelogue.

And the Vandals then stupefied the Buckeyes by recovering a daring onside kick at the 50 yard-line. Abetted by a 5-yard Gilmer penalty, the visitors tromped to a TD in seven plays as Moffatt had another scoring sling of nine yards to able receiver Caden Rowe.

That came with 9:07 left in the affray, only to have Buckeye defender Taj Manson heist the quarterback’s pass for two points, leaving it 28-23. This, of course, meant Van could not tie it with a field goal, but the Vandals seemed to have monopolized momentum.

That trend continued when the Buckeyes were halted on downs at the Van 33 on the hosts’ next offensive, and the visitors trooped to the Gilmer 32, only to themselves be detained on downs with 3:23 left. And that stoppage proved the turning point in the Bucks’ favor.

Gilmer’s offense snapped out of its second=half slumber as Butler abruptly screamed 46 yards to the Van 22. Gilmer reached the 13, and got shoved back to the 15, but notched Pate’s field goal before squelching Van’s last stand.

Thus, the Buckeyes this night didn’t get taken for a ride in a Van.