THE FLYOVER | Mabank slips up on Hendo, but can’t finish; L-E leaves G’water with a win; WR, WO, LC all slip; Troup wins fifth straight

A week after their biggest win in years, Henderson almost got bitten by a massive underdog; West Rusk had a miserable trip to Upshur County; Troup did exactly what they were expected to do in a winless Winona; White Oak ran into a buzzsaw against Jefferson; Liberty-Eylau (unfortunately) got out of another ETBlitz.com-area stadium with a win; and Leverett’s Chapel dropped a district game against always-tough Union Hill.

Let’s go around the ETBlitz.com coverage area and see what happened Friday night.

We don’t have complete updates on the Troup win or Leverett’s Chapel loss – we’ll have those ASAP. For now, the scores. Troup kept Winona winless with a 50-6 victory at Winona.

Coach Sam Wells’ Tigers (5-2) have won five straight now after opening 0-2, and haven’t scored less than 24 points in any of their wins.

Troup hosts red-hot New Diana on Friday; see more on New Diana below.

Union Hill dealt LC a 60-14 loss in District 10-1A (six-man) Division I play.

LC drops to 3-3 overall, with a two-game winning streak snapped. The Lions will host Savoy on Friday at 7 p.m.

Henderson 14, Mabank 10: OK, we’ll take it.

We poked the Panthers with our headline yesterday, because we really believed they were in trouble going into Henderson Friday night. Henderson had lost one game by three points, was coming off the high of beating Kilgore in Kilgore, the biggest win of coach Clay Baker’s young coaching career and the biggest win for the Lions’ program in quite a while.

But Mabank took on the challenge and they darn near did it.

Well – we said “darn near.”

Because they didn’t.

Mabank somehow did manage to hold the Lions scoreless for a half. All kidding aside, District 9-4A, Division I is a tough, tough road. The Panthers played keep-away, with a massive ball-control advantage in the first half. The only score in the first half: a 27-yard field goal by Noah Romero. Mabank led 3-0 at the break.

Kameron Wilkinson scored for the Panthers (1-5, 0-3 in 9-4A play) in the second half. Henderson got two second-half touchdowns by running back Jesstin Starling, who finished with 119 yards on 15 carries and the two scores – by the way, Starling has 1,047 yards and an eye-popping 21 touchdowns on 135 carries, averaging 7.8 yards a carry, this season.

Henderson is 6-1 now overall, and thanks to Kilgore’s win over Chapel Hill, the Lions are the only unbeaten team in the district, at 3-0. They’ll play Pine Tree on Friday at Pirate Stadium in Longview at 7:30 p.m.

Mabank hosts Chapel Hill Friday, also at 7:30.

Liberty-Eylau 49, Gladewater 34: Trip Baysinger, quarterback of the Liberty-Eylau Leopards, took a trip to Jack V. Murphy Stadium, and left with a win. It’s another one, unfortunately for us, over teams in the ETBlitz area: the Leopards dealt Henderson their only loss of the season; they beat Tatum on Oct. 4, in Texarkana; and then Friday night, got out of Gladewater with the victory.

Baysinger threw two touchdowns, one to T.J. Stewart for 47 yards and another for 64 yards to Jayshaun Weatherall, and ran for two – one of those was a dynamic 60-yard run that gave L-E a 13-0 lead in the first half.

Mason Budro scored for Gladewater, punching it in from 3 yards out in the second quarter to cut that lead in half, 13-7.

Baysinger had a second scoring run, this one shorter (23 yards), and then Gladewater’s De’ondre Jefferson scored with just a second left in the half to get the Bears within a touchdown (21-14) at halftime.

That lead swelled quickly on the touchdown throw to Stewart and a pick-six – an interception return for a score – by L-E’s Zaeveya Bell.

Gladewater’s second-half scores were a 3-yard run and a 1-yard run, both by Budro, and a 3-yard run by Jefferson – the 1-yard run by Budro got Gladewater within a touchdown and a two-point conversion with four minutes left in the game, but Dequan Prevo, who had a huge day against Henderson in that 44-41 win, broke free for a 22-yard touchdown that gave the Leopards a two-score lead (49-34) with just under two minutes left, effectively ending any Bears’ comeback.

Gladewater drops to 3-4 on the season overall, and the Bears are 1-2 in district play. And they’ve got a bit of a short week, as they visit another ETBlitz-area program, Tatum, Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Tatum’s Eagle Stadium.

Tatum (3-2, 1-1) had an open date this weekend.

Liberty-Eylau, which appears to be headed for a monster showdown at home against Jefferson Nov. 1, hosts Atlanta on Friday at 7 p.m.

Jefferson 60, White Oak 0: Speaking of Jefferson, going into Friday night’s game at White Oak, the Bulldogs were ranked No. 8 among Class 3A, Division I programs the very-respected Dave Campbell’s Texas Football poll.

They may be higher coming out of it.

White Oak went 4-0 before dropping its last two games – they had an open date last week after losing their District 8-3A, Division I opener to Atlanta two weeks ago – and the Roughnecks haven’t had a problem scoring, even in the loss to the Rabbits, until they ran into Jefferson.

It was tough sledding Friday night. The Bulldogs (7-0, 2-0 in district play) held White Oak’s passing game to just 76 yards.

Jefferson’s offense was impressive. Running back Kamran Williams ran for 165 yards and three touchdowns, and Thimyus Taylor finished 11-of-16 for 327 yards and three more touchdowns.

White Oak drops to a still-respectable 4-2 overall, although they have the back-to-back losses, but they’re 0-2 in district play and need to change that. They’ll play at rival Sabine, who has lost five straight, on Friday, a 7 p.m. kickoff at James Bamberg Stadium.

Jefferson will be off this week, and then host Sabine on Oct. 25.

New Diana 72, West Rusk 7: At this point, it’s fair to say New Diana is just really, really good.

We mentioned the DCTF state rankings earlier; the Eagles are ranked fifth in their 3A, Division II poll. And we’ll say again, rightfully so.

And West Rusk was the latest to feel it, although the Raiders aren’t in bad shape at all for the playoffs. It’s tough to say that after a loss like that, but the Raiders are 2-1 in district play, and control their own destiny: they have three games left, two of them against always-tough rivals Troup (Oct. 25) and Arp (Nov. 8), but both of those are at home, and sandwiched in the middle (Nov. 1), a game at 1-5 Buffalo.

New Diana led 48-0 at halftime.

The Raiders scored on an 18-yard pass to Kameron Brown from Troy Huntley.

Davyon Mapps ran for 140 yards and had two touchdowns for the Eagles (6-0, 2-0 in District 11-3A, Division II), who will play at Troup on Friday night, a 7:30 p.m. kickoff. ND also got a big night from quarterback DeJuan Johnson, who passed for two touchdowns and ran for two more.

The Raiders (3-4 overall) are open this week, and as mentioned, host Troup on Oct. 25.