THE FLYOVER presented by ZIPPY J’s | A roundup of a fantastic week four, including PT, Troup, Carthage, WR, Arp, White Oak & Beckville
Let’s head around the ETBlitz.com coverage area for updates on games we didn’t have Friday night.
Let’s do THE FLYOVER!
Pine Tree
Eight teams in District 8-4A, Division I, so there were four games Friday night: three of them involved programs covered by ETBlitz.com.
Pine Tree, and not your dad’s Pine Tree but a new competitive bunch of Pirates under coach Jason Bachman, journeyed to the ol’ Tomato Bowl in Jacksonville, and it did not work out well for the Jacksonville Indians. Pine Tree went back to Longview with a 42-14 win.
Pine Tree quarterback Colton Croft is one of the best at his position in the district and he proved it again Friday night. Croft had two touchdown passes to his buddy, wide receiver Bosston Johnson, and before long, the Pirates had built a 28-0 lead.
It swelled to 35-0 before the Indians scored, and the Pirates added one more for good measure.
Darron Pair had two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown for Pine Tree, who moved to 2-2 on the year , and of course, 1-0 in district play.
JaKaiden Johnson gave the Pirates a 7-0 lead on a 4-yard touchdown run just 3 ½ minutes into the game. Just over three minutes later, PT doubled its lead with a 38-yard pass from Croft to Johnson.
The Pirates pushed their lead to 21-0 on a 2-yard run by Ja’Karius Timmons, and then Pair had his pick-six, returned for 50 yards, to give PT a 28-0 halftime advantage.
Croft found Johnson on a 28-yard scoring throw with just over two minutes off the third-quarter clock (35-0 Pirates). Jacksonville finally managed to score on 6-yard pass to Bubba Suarez-Mosley, but Pine Tree scored a final time on another 2-yard run by Timmons.
The Indians had the final score of the night, a 26-yard run by Christian McGowan.
The Pirates will host another ETBlitz.com-area team, Kilgore, this coming Friday night.
In other games from the district on opening night:
Henderson won its see-saw game at Palestine, 54-35, and by see-saw, we don’t mean the Lions gave up the lead. They never trailed. Palestine shot in the foot whatever chances it might have had by continually turning the ball over – the Wildcats had four fumbles and at least one interception, not to mention an onside kick returned by Henderson to the Palestine 1-yard-line. Our story: LIONS OUTCLAW WILDCATS | Henderson deals Palestine 54-35 loss in district opener for both programs.
The Kilgore Bulldogs won, too, beating Bullard handily, 40-6. In fact, Kilgore was on the field for 15 minutes before they knew anybody was out there with ‘em. Quarterback Braxton Johnson threw five touchdown passes. Our story: DE-CLAWED | Kilgore spanks Bullard to open district play.
There was a district game involving none of our teams, and in that one, Lindale dropped a 60-burger on Chapel Hill, dealing the Bulldogs, 66-34.
The story from that one was the performance by Lindale’s Hank Thurman, who ran for 240 yards and four touchdowns, and then added a 45-yard catch for a score.
Now, back to our ETBlitz.com-area teams.
Troup
Troup 35, Rusk 13: Troup continues to flex its muscles as the No. 1-ranked team in the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football 3A-Division II poll.
Coach Sam Wells’ Tigers hosted a scrappy Rusk team Friday night, but Troup was up to the challenge.
Brett Wells was his usual self: a whopping 26 carries, 120 yards, and two touchdowns on offense, then added 10 tackles, three of them for loss, on defense. Quarterback Trevor Golightly didn’t throw it quite as much, but was still an efficient 6-of-9 for 90 yards and a touchdown, to his brother Desh Golightly (two catches for 47 yards and the TD).
James Pierce had 95 yards on the ground and a pair of catches for 33 yards. Cameron Hollie scored a rush TD and finished with 20 yards, and had a pair of catches for 15 yards, as well.
Jaylen Anderson, Jacob Hewitt and Bryson Needham each had a sack for Troup, and Pierce added an interception.
The Tigers, now 4-0, have one more non-district game left: at Tatum on Thursday night.
Carthage
Carthage 41, Legacy School of Sports Sciences 14: Checking in with the defending 4A-Division II state champions, who hosted this Houston-area team Friday night – coach Scott Surratt’s Bulldogs had an open date the week before.
Carthage (3-0) didn’t look rusty at all in a big win. But this week, they’ll see a familiar opponent: Carthage is hitting the road to West Orange-Stark on Friday, the team they defeated last December in the 4A-DII state championship.
In addition to homecoming, the win was also incredibly the 19th straight win for the ‘Dawgs. Their last loss: to Kilgore in the season opener in 2024.
Carthage had 140 rushing yards in the contest – the Carthage defense held Legacy to 11.
Bulldogs quarterback 22-of-32 for 270 yards.
Carthage only punted once in the contest.
Our congratulations to Kyrsten Haggerty, who was named homecoming queen right before the game.
We’ll have more on this game on Monday here on ETBlitz.com.
White Oak
Scurry Rosser 42, White Oak: The Roughnecks unfortunately remain winless this season after Scurry Rosser came in and escaped with a win.
For White Oak, though, Jackson was 18-of-33 for 246 yards and four touchdowns to four different receivers, and also ran for 168 yards on 24 carries and had a touchdown, just a heck of a night.
Also for White Oak, Angel Mejia had 83 yards and a touchdown on five catches; Cal Jester and Tysen McLain also each had five catches – Jester for 78 yards and a touchdown and McLain for 54 yards and a score; and Branton Wood also had two catches for 28 yards, one of them a touchdown.
Defensively, Jester had 11 tackles and a forced fumble defensively for White Oak (0-4), which will host West Rusk.
West Rusk
West Rusk 43, Garrison 21: Speaking of the Raiders, coach Rafe Mata and the crew made what we’d call a “successful business trip” to Garrison and back on Friday night.
The Raiders (3-1) have won back-to-back games, their only loss of the season a home loss to Diboll back on Sept. 4.
Quarterback Trig Pratt threw for 200 yards, only missed five passes, and threw four touchdowns, two each to Kam Brown and Gunnar Harp. Kemontrea McGregor had six catches for 31 yards; Harp had three for 54, and the two touchdowns; Brown had two for 40 yards and the two scores; Rhett Jackson had two catches for 48 yards; and Jaylan Gardner had one for 28 yards.
Daylan Williams continued his spectacular season with another big game: 93 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries.
Alex Ponce had 13 tackles and an interception. Chris Sanchez and Tucker Heathco each had 10. Troy Hunley had six, and three for loss. And Caiden Landon had a fumble recovery returned for 22 yards.
As mentioned, West Rusk plays at White Oak Friday night.
Arp
Arp 54, Shelbyville 7: There were people saying that the visiting team – Shelbyville – should have been listed as the favorite at Arp last Friday night.
None of those people were wearing Arp jerseys.
Arp led 21-0 after the first quarter, 35-7 at halftime and – in all honesty – was never really threatened by Shelbyville in the game.
Arp’s Tanner Hunt is likely still running – through the Shelbyville players’ heads. Hunt had 158 yards and scored four touchdowns on 17 carries in the win.
Quarterback Ty Langley ran for 105 yards, a touchdown and a two-point conversion, and completed 10-of-14 passes for 90 yards and another score (to Grayson Spoon). And Noah Beck had 30 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries.
Spoon had two catches for 23 yards and a touchdown. Layton Shelburne had three for 32. Isiah Pierce had two for 14 yards; Jeremee Sheppard had two for 13; and David Black had one for 8.
Brenden Dark had six tackles, one for loss. Chrisden Ellis had four tackles, one for loss and two quarterback hurries. Noah Beck had four tackles and a hurry. Hudson Orpineda had four tackles and a sack. Liam Lemmel had three tackles and a sack. And Cale Bedard had an interception and a caused fumble.
Arp (4-0) heads to Timpson this Friday night.
Gladewater
Gladewater 48, Spring Hill 20: The Gladewater Bears are back in the win column after a magnificent performance by quarterback Achilles Hess and the Bears’ running game.
Tray Watts scored on a 1-yard run with just over nine minutes left in the first quarter, but had a huge 45-yard run before that to set up the score. Marshaun Stevenson put the Bears up 13-0 right before the end of the first quarter.
Hess took it in himself on a 3-yard run to open the second quarter, after finding Destin Sheridan for a 25-yard strike to set it up, and then after a Spring Hill turnover, Caleb Balcorta scored on a 1-yard run. Gladewater (2-2) led 27-0.
Spring Hill scored before the half, but Hess had an answer for that one, too: he and Sheridan connected again, this time for a 62-yard touchdown strike.
The Bears scored twice in the second half: a 30-yard run by Balcorta and a 3-yard catch by Connor Thompson from Hess.
Gladewater hosts Athens this Friday night.
Thursday night
Beckville
New Diana 70, Beckville 62: Very little defense in this Thursday night track meet at New Diana.
But there were a LOT of offensive fireworks, including five touchdowns by Rudy Watts of Beckville.
Watts had 120 yards and those five scores, but also had 10 (!) catches for 120 yards in defeat.
Wesdon Harris was 8-of-13 for 160 yards and two touchdowns. Reese Davis was 10-of-14 for 189 yards and two more TDs. Davis also ran for 48 yards in the loss. Gabe Johnson had five catches for 133 yards in the game, and Seth Ryans caught two passes for 80 yards and a score.
Timmy Wilcots had 100 yards and two touchdowns.
The Bearcats had a tough time slowing New Diana quarterback DeJuan Johnson, who had 240 yards rushing and four touchdowns, oh, and went 8-of-12 for 170 yards and two more touchdowns through the air. New Diana finished with 620 yards of offense.
Dylan Debaun rushed for 155 yards and three touchdowns, and Johnson’s main target was Christian Gomez, who had 124 yards and two touchdown receptions in his five catches.
Gladewater (1-3 this season) hosts Ore City on Friday night.