NUMBER 10 FOR CARTHAGE | ‘Dawgs take 4A-DII state title over La Vega, and a round-up for the week
The Carthage High School Bulldogs now have 10 football state championships in their history.
And every single one of them came under the helm of coach Scott Surratt – and this one had a second member of his family involved.
Quarterback Jett Surratt found teammate Junior Henderson for a number of completions Friday here at AT&T Stadium, including two fourth-quarter touchdowns, and Kevlin “K.J.” Edwards ran for two touchdowns as well, as Carthage wrapped up the University Interscholastic League’s Class 4A, Division II State Championship with a 28-14 win. La Vega’s Jayven Hernandez, the back-up quarterback, scored as time expired, making the final score much closer than the game.
Carthage’s defense sacked La Vega quarterback Kourtney Parr six times, a new record for sacks in a 4A state championship game.
And the game, for it to have been 14-7 for so long, never really threatened after the second quarter. La Vega’s two best highlights were both long catches: one by James Degrate, and a fourth-quarter highlight-reel catch for 40-plus yards by MarQwae Willis, between Carthage defenders Jaydon Lewis and Leo Brown.
The Bulldogs are 10-1 in state championship games all-time, but 10-0 under Surratt. Carthage’s only loss this season: all the way back in the season opener on Aug. 31, a 20-15 loss at home to… Kilgore.
When asked about winning this title, in particular, with his son, Surratt said, “It’s special, I’m gonna tell you that.”
In other games so far this week, Jayton beat Oakwood, 54-8, in the 1A (six-man) Division II state title game, the very first game played this week, on Wednesday morning. Gordon blasted Whiteface, 70-24, in the 1A-DI six-man championship.
Muenster beat Shiner, 36-29, in the 2A-DII title game, and Ganado edged out Stamford, 30-28, in three overtimes in the 2A-DI championship.
Thursday featured both of the 3A games, and neither were close.
Gunter shut out Woodville for the 3A-DII championship, and in what most of East Texas couldn’t see happening, Columbus blew by Malakoff, 48-14. Malakoff had been ranked No. 1 in the Dave Campbell’s Class 3A-DI poll for almost the entire season.
More on those later: back to Carthage.
The CHS-La Vega game was scoreless until Kelvin “K.J.” Edwards scored for Carthage on a 21-yard run early in the second quarter, putting the ‘Dawgs up 7-0.
La Vega, pinned back inside its 10-yard-line on the next series after a sack by Carthage’s Carson Crawford, couldn’t get out of the hole and had to punt. It wasn’t the best effort – it was downed at La Vega’s own 42, with 8:42 left in the half.
A fourth-down conversion attempt by Carthage with six minutes left in the half failed, and La Vega quarterback Kourtney Parr made them pay, avoiding the pass rush in a magician-like way, just missing a sack by Crawford, and completed a pass downfield to Andrew Gwinn, who walked the tightrope but stayed in bounds.
Running back Bryson Roland got the Pirates to the door of the goal line, tackled at the 1 – inside the 1, actually – and two plays later, quarterback Parr did the honors for the less-than-a-yard score. LV tied the game (7-7) with the extra point with 4:05 left in the half.
It wouldn’t stay tied for long.
Carthage’s offensive line opened up a huge hole, and Edwards didn’t likely even need that much. He took it anyway, spun free at the line of scrimmage, got the first down and bolted away from all LV defenders, an 86-yard go-ahead touchdown with 3:40 left in the half.
That, and the extra point by Leo Medrano, gave the Bulldogs a 14-7 lead.
The next La Vega drive ended in disaster: well, more like a really bad punt. Carthage’s Jaydon Lewis picked off a pass at the Carthage 35, allowing the Bulldogs one more first-half possession, as they took over there with 1:55 left.
Carthage found themselves in a fourth down situation at midfield, but instead of a punt, even a quick punt, with just under a minute left, quarterback Jett Surratt found Junior Henderson down the sideline for the first down, all the way to La Vega’s 33-yard-line.
With 29 seconds left, the Bulldogs were at the La Vega 30, with two time outs. This time, Surratt’s pass was high over Henderson’s head, and another fourth-down situation was up.
No decision, no field goal. Carthage quickly went for it, but Surratt’s pass was incomplete to Cale Preston – it might have been tipped early-on after the throw. At any rate, LV took over on downs with 19 seconds left in the half.
The Pirates took no chances; coach Don Hyde told Parr to take a knee and he did, sending the game to the half with Carthage up, 14-7.
La Vega was close to tying the game up, inside Carthage’s 15-yard-line, but Parr ran into Crawford again, and was sacked. That put the Pirates into fourth and 28 at Carthage’s 32.
A head-scratcher: LV went for the fourth-down conversion, and Parr went for it all: a pass into the end zone, but out of the reach of Jabarie Thornton, who dove for the ball and still couldn’t get it. Carthage took over on downs with 1:46 left in the third quarter, still up 14-7.
Carthage, inside its own 40, converted on fourth down yet again: another pass from Surratt to Henderson, and had second-and-short at midfield as the fourth quarter began.
Surratt and Henderson, fittingly, would put the game away on a 26-yard touchdown pass with 6:24 left. La Vega’s Amir Gibson had good coverage; Surratt put the ball low, to the ground, where only Henderson could get it, and he did, capping a six-play 58-yard drive.
The two would hook up again with 2:17 left for a 19-yard score, and Medrano’s extra point finished the game, the 28-7 final.
Surratt didn’t have statistically his best game: 8-of-23 for XXX yards and the two touchdowns. But here’s the bad news for his opponents: Jett is just a junior.
Here’s the WORSE news for opponents: so are Henderson, Edwards and Crawford, the ones responsible for most of the beat-down of La Vega today.
By the way: 13,194 witnessed the Carthage-La Vega contest.
Now, as for the other games this week:
Class 1A, Division II State Championship: Jayton 54, Oakwood 8 (Wednesday, Dec. 18): As mentioned, this was the first title game played this week, as the smallest six-man division is always played first.
Jayton’s Sean Stanaland and Bode Ham had seven combined touchdowns in the game, forcing their 14th mercy rule score of the season (UIL six-man play has a mercy score of 45 points after halftime).
For Oakwood, Dayden Velasques went 7-of-18 for 135 yards and a touchdown; Velasquez had 5,146 total yards this season.
Class 1A, Division II State Championship: Gordon 70, Whiteface 24 (Wednesday, Dec. 18): Here’s one of the most impressive numbers of the week, even for the wide-open six-man game: Gordon scored nine touchdowns on just 17 plays!
Stryker Reed and Ry Reed combined for seven touchdowns, five of them rushing, and blew the game open.
Whiteface’s top performers were Ethan Kaufman, who had 67 yards rushing, a rush TD and a receiving TD, and quarterback Jermiah Rendon, who went 4-of-5 for 120 yards and had 21 yards and a score on four carries.
Class 2A, Division II State Championship: Muenster 36, Shiner 29 (Wednesday evening, Dec. 18): The story here: Shiner led Muenster by one point, 29-28, for almost the entire fourth quarter – except the final 40 seconds.
Shiner’s Carson Schuette scored on a 1-yard run on the final play of the third quarter, putting his team up by a point. But it was Muenster’s Casen Carney with the final word, a 6-yard run and the game-winner with 40 seconds left.
Carney, the offensive player of the game, finished with 171 passing yards and 147 rushing yards, and four rushing touchdowns.
For Shiner in defeat, Triston Vesely had 14 tackles, two for loss, a half-sack and a pass break-up, and was the game’s defensive most valuable player.
Class 2A, Division I State Championship: Ganado 30, Stamford, 28 (three overtimes; Thursday, Dec. 19): In the game of the week so far, these two were tied at 21 after regulation, and then tied at 28 after the first overtime.
The game then became decided by alternating two-point conversions, and it was Ganado, who got a pass from Bryce Ullman to Austen Pena for the win.
Offensive most valuable player Ullman threw for 172 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 49 yards and a third touchdown. Cain Hayden caught both of the touchdown passes, and also had two interceptions in the game as a defensive back. Those two picks won him defensive player of the game honors.
For Stamford, quarterback Christian Duran finished with 152 passing yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 54 yards, as well. Kaston Vega had 89 rushing yards and two TDs.
Class 3A, Division II State Championship: Gunter 28, Woodville 0 (Thursday, Dec. 19): The experienced and the inexperienced here, as Woodville was in the title game for the first time.
Gunter led 7-0 when Mitchell Gage broke it open with a 96-yard kick return for a touchdown, the longest return in 3A title game history.
That put Gunter up 14-0, and three minutes left, a 59-yard pass play added another score.
Preston Tarpley finished with 121 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns for Gunter.
Woodville’s Jaythan Traylor finished with 11 tackles, 2 ½ tackles for loss, and a sack.
Gunter’s Hayden Farrell was named the defensive player of the game, and Cash Rumage earned offensive honors.
Class 3A, Division I State Championship: Columbus 48, Malakoff 14 (Thursday, Dec. 19): Here was the biggest surprise so far this week – not an absolute shocker that Malakoff lost. This is high school. It was the manner in which they lost that was shocking.
Columbus took a 7-0 lead on a 3-yard run by Grayson Rigdon with 2:36 left in the first quarter, and then Malakoff tied the game on a 4-yard run by Jerrion Hall three minutes later.
But the Cardinals outscored Malakoff 41-7 the rest of the game. Rigdon finished with a ridiculous six touchdowns scored, to go with 380 total yards. And the Cardinals’ defense managed six sacks, tied for the most in a 3A state championship game in that classification’s history.
Columbus held Malakoff quarterback Mike Jones to just 118 total yards. Hall finished with 10 tackles, eight of them solo, and two for loss for the Tigers.
It was the Schobel Show on the players-of-the-game awards: Adam Schobel was named offensive player of the game, and Josh Schobel was the defensive MVP.