THE FLYOVER | Tatum clinches a playoff spot with big win; Atlanta beats Gladewater; New Diana looks good again in Arp

Things are wild in crazy in a couple of UIL Class 3A districts in the ETBlitz.com coverage area.

Two of our teams faced off Friday night at Tatum’s Eagle Stadium, with the Eagles hosting White Oak, and at least this much was clarified: coach Whitney Keeling’s Tatum Eagles are headed to the playoffs.

Tatum, spurred on by an unreal four-touchdown performance by Cayden Tatum, beat White Oak, 49-28, Friday night, and by virtue of wins over the Roughnecks, Gladewater and Sabine, Tatum cannot be caught for that fourth and final playoff spot.

The view in front of them looks like this: Jefferson edged out Liberty-Eylau, 35-34, Friday night in Texarkana, and is still unbeaten in district, the district leader with a 5-0 record in district play. L-E is second, with a 4-1 record. Atlanta, who defeated Gladewater, 35-7, on Friday, is third (4-2) and Tatum is 3-2, with one game left: that’ll be played at Jefferson next Friday night.

But regardless of what happens in that game, the Eagles (6-3 overall) are headed to the UIL Class 3A playoffs.

Elsewhere around the ETBlitz.com coverage area, Gilmer topped Spring Hill, 59-28 (that story is coming from our own Phillip Williams); Atlanta beat Gladewater, as mentioned, 35-7; West Rusk routed Buffalo, 64-14; New Diana held true and remained undefeated with a 41-16 win over a tough Arp team; Leverett’s Chapel dealt King’s Academy its first loss of the season, 74-54, in a non-district game between those six-man teams; Chapel Hill downed Henderson in a shocker, 42-14 (here’s our story on that one: HENDERSON SLIPS AT HOME TO CHAPEL HILL | Bulldogs overturn district race with unexpected win); and Overton came firing back in the second half for a 45-44 overtime win at Mount Enterprise (HOW ‘BOUT THAT COMEBACK?! | Overton goes down 24, roars back for a 45-44 overtime win).

Back to Tatum.

Eagles quarterback Jacorie Bradley and Isaac McAllister connected for a 52-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring, with 3 ½ minutes left in the first quarter. DeKarlo Winsor’s extra point put Tatum in front, 7-0.

Quincy Davis had a 20-yard interception return of a tipped pass to double Tatum’s lead (14-0), still in the first quarter.

And that’s when Tatum – Cayden Tatum, that is – began his weekly magic show, scoring three touchdowns, all on runs of 1 yard, 7 yards and 36 yards, to send the game to the half with the Eagles up 35-0.

White Oak would get its first score in the third quarter, a 10-yard pass from Jaxsen Ludlow to Brayden Bratcher, but Tatum would come right back with another score. This time, it was Bradley finding Kenneton Harrison for the TD on an 11-yard pass.

Scotty Breitenberg, who always seems to make plays for White Oak no matter what the sport, made a few in the second half, along with the very-good quarterback Ludlow. They connected for a 29-yard TD pass (42-21), and then Ludlow found Bratcher for another (52 yards).

But Cayden Tatum had one more left in him, a 27-yard pass from Bradley, to round out the scoring for the Eagles. Ludlow would get his fourth touchdown pass of the night just before the game ended, an 18-yard throw to Tyson McKinney.

The Roughnecks are 5-4, still a drastic improvement on a winless season in 2023, and will finish the 2024 season with a home game against Gladewater next Friday.

Atlanta 35, Gladewater 7: Speaking of the Bears, they ran into a bit of a buzzsaw at home, hosting Atlanta on Friday night.

Atlanta scored first, capitalizing on a fake punt that failed by the Bears, to score on a 1-yard play that was set up by a 20-yard run by Markeylin Batton.

The Rabbits (7-3 overall) doubled their lead on a 78-yard pass play from Peyton Harrison to Batton, and then Gladewater cut that in half immediately, getting a 1-yard run from Mason Budro with three minutes left in the half.

That looked to be the halftime score, but Harrison would strike again, hitting Riley for a touchdown from 25 yards out with just a second left in the half, and sending the game to the break with Atlanta in front, 21-7.

It remained that until near the game’s end, when Sye Stroman had an interception that led to a 57-yard run by Jamarion Austin (28-7), and then D.C. Range scored on a 12-yard run with a minute left in the contest for the final score.

Gladewater falls to 3-6 on the season, and will finish it up next week in White Oak.

New Diana 41, Arp 16: The Eagles remained unbeaten and were impressive with this win, as Arp had won three straight games.

The Tigers (6-3 on the season) finish the regular season with a huge game at West Rusk next Friday night. That game will decide third and fourth place in District 11-3A, Division I – New Diana will win the district, with no losses, unless it loses next week, and the Eagles would still be district champs, and Troup (6-3, 4-1), who had an open date Friday night, will finish second.

DeJuan Johnson had four touchdown passes for New Diana at Arp on Friday. The Eagles, ranked No. 4 in the state in the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Class 3A, Division II poll, would go up 27-0 in the third quarter, then 34-0 on a 27-yard run by Davyon Mapps, who had 100 yards rushing in the game.

Josh Smith of Arp, the Whataburger / ETBlitz.com Player of the Week last week, scored on a 17-yard run early in the fourth quarter, and Thomas McKelvey would score the Tigers’ final touchdown. Arp was good on both two-point conversions, with McKelvey getting one of them and Demarcus Wade, the other.

Smith finished with 196 yards and the score, not a bad performance in an otherwise rough night for the Tigers.

We’ll have more on our other games shortly here on ETBlitz.com, including Phillip Williams’ recap of Gilmer’s win over Spring Hill.