IT’S GILMER! | After holding off scrappy Center, the Buckeyes are the Goudarzi & Young, LLP / ETBlitz Team of the Week!

When you’re the champion, you often have a higher standard.

The Gilmer High School Buckeyes – as the defending state champion in University Interscholastic League (UIL) Class 4A, Division II – have found that out.

Gilmer, like a few other programs in the ETBlitz.com coverage area, already plays with a target on its back, simply because of its long, storied winning tradition. You win a few state titles and two things happen, for sure: 1.) People begin gunning for you, and point to the date on the schedule that they face you, and 2.) You tend to raise your own expectations for yourself.

Of the playoff teams from the ETBlitz.com area in week one, Tatum – having to face defending 3A champ Malakoff – probably had the most difficult road, and West Rusk also had a tough task, going against Newton.

But Center is always a tough out. The Roughriders have a very good program, and when the Gilmer-Center matchup was set in round one at Tatum’s Eagle Stadium, some of us on the ETBlitz crew knew the Buckeyes would get their best effort.

For knocking out Center in round one and conquering the first step en route to a possible repeat as a state champion, the Gilmer Buckeyes are the Gourdarzi & Young, LLP / ETBlitz.com Team of the Week, for the week of Nov. 11-16.

If you didn’t see it, you can catch the excellent wrap-up, the game story, from that game by our own Phillip Williams right here: GILMER HOLDS OFF CENTER | Buckeyes’ title defense continues Thursday in S. Springs vs. Sunnyvale. Phillip is a hoot, and has been covering Gilmer games for over a half-century. There’s not much he hasn’t seen.

One thing he did see last week was a Center team determined to advance to round two.

Until they didn’t.

The Buckeyes were up 20-14 with 4:28 left when Center quarterback T.J. Belin – who threw for over 2,000 yards, 25 touchdowns and just two interceptions in the regular season – was back to pass at midfield. Belin called for the snap and the ball bounced off of him, a disaster for the Roughriders and their fans, because Gilmer fell on the loose ball, and was able to run out the remaining clock for the win.

The next-to-the-last play of the game might have been the key to the entire thing: Gilmer quarterback Brady McCown found his favorite target, Brendan Webb, on a fourth down play that picked up 6 yards to the Center 20-yard-line, securing another first down. It’d be the last one the Buckeyes would need; they got into victory formation and knelt on the final few seconds.

It was a rematch between the two programs from 2023, a game Gilmer won, 69-42.

Before the late happenings, back early in the game, Center went up 7-0 on a 2-yard run into the end zone by Belin.

Gilmer tied the game on the next possession, a 16-yard run by Trillyon Butler to cap a 55-yard, eight-play drive (7-7).

The Buckeyes took a 13-7 lead with 8:09 left in the half on a 2-yard run by Butler, but a fake point after attempt – holder Cadon Tennison attempted a throw to kicker Brayden Pate. Pate made the catch but was stopped short of the end zone, leaving Gilmer up by six.

It wouldn’t stay that way for long. The Black Flag defense forced a punt, giving the Buckeyes the ball back at their own 39-yard-line, and McCown and Webb connected twice: once for a 26-yarder to the Center 31, then right after that for a 31-yard touchdown.

This time, the point after was kicked and successfully so by Pate, giving Gilmer a 20-7 lead with 2:39 left in the half.

Center tied the game with one minute, one second left in the third quarter, a 9-yard run by Timothy Johnson. The point after was good and Center had gotten within six (20-14), but that would be as close as it’d get, thanks in large part to the miscue with the bobbled snap described earlier in this story, and Gilmer running out the clock.

Coach Alan Metzel’s Buckeyes are 8-3 on the season, having lost their first two games (to Pine Tree and Chapel Hill), but having only experienced one loss since September, the one to district rival Pleasant Grove.

The Buckeyes’ next challenge awaits Thursday night in Sulphur Springs, an area-round game against Sunnyvale (8-3). And we’ll have that preview here on ETBlitz.com on Wednesday.

The target: one game at a time for Metzel and company, the ultimate goal to lift the title trophy again in mid-December.

For now, though, congratulations to the Buckeyes, the Goudarzi & Young / ETBlitz Team of the Week!

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