No one had to tell Hawley running back Austin Cumpton what he missed last year when he was unable to play in the Bearcats’ first-ever state championship game.

In street clothes for that one after fracturing a pair of vertebrae a few weeks earlier, the then-junior witnessed it firsthand as his teammates fell 47-12 to Shiner.

To say that experience was a motivator a year later — for both Cumpton and the Bearcats — might be an understatement. And healthy as a senior, Hawley’s 6-foot-1, 225-pound bowling ball back and his brothers made good on their mission of returning to AT&T Stadium and finishing the job this time.