Hawley 60, Winters 6 — Austin Cumpton rushed for 138 yards and four scores on only 10 carries to lift Hawley to a win on the road.
The Bearcats finished with 481 yards of dual-threat offense, rushing for 220.
Hawley 60, Winters 6 — Austin Cumpton rushed for 138 yards and four scores on only 10 carries to lift Hawley to a win on the road.
The Bearcats finished with 481 yards of dual-threat offense, rushing for 220.
STAMFORD — A week after rushing for more than 300 yards and five scores in a win over Olney, Cisco quarterback Hunter Long demonstrated another part of his game on Friday in a 47-14 win over Stamford: an accurate deep passing game.
Long was 9 of 13 for 243 yards and three scores to lead Cisco (7-1, 4-0 District 4-2A DI), which is now in a firm position to challenge Hawley for the league title. Long connected with passes of 77, 52 and 40 yards along the way and rushed for 145 yards and three scores to help the Loboes to their fifth straight win.
Limited to 201 yards in total offense, Stamford (6-1, 2-1) suffered its first loss of the year. Hayden Henager led the Bulldogs with 71 yards rushing on 14 carries.
“We put ourselves in some third-and-long situations when we had to throw the ball,” said Cisco coach Kevin Stennett, whose club finished with 540 total yards (297 rushing). “We finally proved that we’ve got some receivers who will go up and get it and we got it to several different receivers.
“We wanted to show that we can throw the ball and mix it up and I’ve very pleased about how balanced we were.”
With a difficult Olney team paying them a visit on Friday, the Cisco Loboes could ill afford a misstep in their quest to win District 4-2A Division I — not with Stamford and Hawley still on their plate.
Cisco turned to veteran quarterback Hunter Long to get the job done and our Big Country Preps Player of the Week responded with an eye-popping 338 yards rushing and five touchdowns on 20 carries to help Cisco (6-1, 3-0) to a 34-15 win.
Cisco 34, Olney 15 — Hunter Long accounted for 355 of Cisco’s 399 yards in total offense, rushing for 338 yards and throwing for 17 in an important win over Olney.
Long found the end zone five times, scoring on runs of 11, 83, 64, 2 and 7 yards to help the Loboes improve to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in District 4-2A DI.
Olney was led by Gatlin Guy who rushed for 122 yards and one TD and Jovani Rockmore, who rushed for 116 and another TD.
After an 0-1 start in district play with a loss at Wall, the Clyde Lady Bulldogs were facing some pressure last week in tough league matchups against Jim Ned and San Angelo TLCA.
Clyde responded with a pair of wins and our Big Country Preps Player of the Week, junior setter Abby Carr was at the forefront of that effort.
Charting 38 assists, 19 kills and four aces, Carr was not only setting up the offense, but when rotating to the front line, she also did a pretty fair job of finishing it.
Stamford 22, Olney 13 — Christian Duran rushed for 92 yards and one TD and Hayden Henager
rushed for 66 yards and another touchdown unbeaten Stamford (6-0) handed Olney (4-1) its first loss
of the season.
The Cubs had a narrow 287-266 edge in yardage, but Stamford forced five turnovers to earn the win on the road.
LAST WEEK: 51-10, .836
SEASON TOTAL: 131-42, .757
Football picks are something I take pride in and it irritates me to no end when I stink it up. So let’s just say, I burned some midnight oil to get that situation corrected last week.
As a result, the column recovered with a solid .836 percentage in Week 3, salvaging my bruised ego after a disastrous Week 2 tally. In all, 51 of 61 area picks hit the mark last week, elevating my season’s record above 75 percent.
That’s more like it.
Week 4 in the meantime, presents a lineup of some of the most difficult area picks we’ve had this season — including an explosive Glen Rose team facing Brownwood in our BCP Game of the Week. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Here’s this week’s forecast:
In a week that featured several performances worthy of capturing the Capital Farm Credit/BCP Player of the Week award, Clyde quarterback Blake Carr narrowly captured the top spot with an explosive performance in a 41-21 win over Merkel.
Carr, a junior, hit 18 of 23 passes for 311 yards and four scores as CHS improved to 2-1 on the year. He also rushed six times for 106 yards and a fifth touchdown on a 46-yard run.
Digital photos, prints and keepsakes may be purchased by clicking the link below. The “BigCountryPreps.com” watermark will be removed from all purchased photos.
Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Cisco-Breckenridge football (72 images)” →

BRECKENRIDGE — For three full quarters, the Breckenridge Buckaroos dominated the Big Country Preps Game of the Week, taking a 30-7 lead into the final period.
Then it happened: a 12-minute lesson given by Cisco on how to respond to adversity.
Not only did the Loboes respond, but they nearly won the game, scoring 20 unanswered points in the fourth quarter before falling 30-27 at Buckaroo Stadium.
After a week of highlighting area playmakers, we wrap up our eight-part preseason position rankings series with the Big Country’s best signal callers.
To complete our look at the area’s top players, we’ve ranked our top 10 quarterbacks with a list of others to watch in 2022.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you’ve enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kick off a new season.
As we wind down our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we arrive finally at the Big Country’s top ball-carriers.
After breaking down this year’s crop of receivers and tight ends earlier today, we move now to the area’s top backs, ranking our top 10 with a list of others to watch in 2022. Don’t forget to check in Thursday when we conclude our series with the top 10 area quarterbacks.
We hope you enjoy tonight’s list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
We’re approaching the final stretch of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, and it’s time to look at the Big Country’s top receivers.
After starting the offensive portion of our series Tuesday with the linemen, we now shift our attention to the playmakers on the perimeter, ranking our top 10 wideouts/tight ends with a list of others to watch in 2022.
We hope you enjoy our list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
With the defensive and special teams rankings behind us, it’s time to look at the area’s top offensive players. And we’ll start with the foundation of any productive offense: the offensive line.
For the fifth installment of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we turn our attention to the trenches, ranking the Big Country’s top 10 offensive linemen with a list of others to watch in 2022.
We hope you enjoy reading through our rankings.
After recognizing the top defensive players throughout the Big Country over the past three days, it’s time to honor the specialists.
We continue our eight-part preseason position rankings series by naming our top eight kickers and top eight punters to watch this fall.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you have enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kickoff the 2022 season.
After starting with the linemen and linebackers, we turn to the defensive backfield to complete our look at the top defenders in the Big Country.
For the third installment in our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we shift our focus to the secondary, giving our list of the area’s top-10 defensive backs and others to look out for in 2022.
We hope you enjoy our list.
After taking a look at the Big Country’s top defensive linemen on Saturday, it’s now time to examine those who will backing them in 2022.
Continuing with Big Country Preps’ eight-part preseason position rankings series, here’s our top 10 linebackers to watch this fall, as well as a list of the others we’re expecting big things from.
We hope you enjoy our list.
With the start of football season around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the players who will be making the biggest impact in 2022.
For the first installment in an eight-part series that will cover all position groups, we’ll be taking a look at the area’s top defensive linemen, ranking our top 10 with a list of others to watch this fall.
As with any such list, these rankings are subjective. We hope you enjoy reading through them.
Without further ado, it is time for us to make our Big Country predictions, district-by-district.
This is the culmination of several weeks of research and two solid months of summertime labor, so we’re more than ready to post it.
CISCO — For two full seasons, Cisco’s Hunter Long has been the trigger man of the CHS offense. But with all the success the Loboes have enjoyed in that span (posting a 21-7 record with a pair of deep playoff runs), he’s had closer to three full seasons condensed into two.
Now entering his senior year as one of the most seasoned signal callers in the Big Country, Long is hoping to parlay that experience into a season-ending trip to Arlington — something the Loboes haven’t achieved since they won a Class 2A DII state title back in 2013.
“Thinking about it makes me a little sad because I don’t want it to end,” Long said. “I’m just going to go out and play like it’s my last game, every game.”

CISCO — The annual question revolving around perennial power Cisco isn’t if the Loboes will be good. It’s generally how good?
The 2022 campaign is no different, with 17 Cisco lettermen returning from an 11-3 team, including six offensive and nine defensive starters.
“We like what we have on both sides of the ball,” third-year coach Kevin Stennett said. “Our issue right now will be depth and it’s been like that for the last several years.
“As long as we keep the guys who are starting healthy and keep them going throughout the season, we should be ok.”
Football is just around the corner, and we at BigCountryPreps.com are committed to bringing you the information you need to prepare for your favorite team’s season.
We’ll be releasing our Big Country Preps Preseason Football Preview, the most comprehensive look at the upcoming Big Country football season anywhere, on Wednesday, Aug. 17. But you won’t have to wait until then to sate your gridiron appetite.
Leading up to the first day of fall football practice on Aug. 1, we’ll be spotlighting each 11-man team in the area and posing some of the key questions they’ll face in 2022 as part of our annual “Countdown to Two-a-Days” series.
We stay in Class 2A Division I with the Cisco Loboes. On Saturday we will take a look at the Colorado City Wolves, followed by the Hawley Bearcats on Sunday.
OTHER 2022 ALL-BIG COUNTRY PREPS TEAMS
Character, grit and work ethic aren’t seen in a box score. And it is with our Big Country Preps All-Hustle Team that we wish to honor those players (male and female) who exemplify those qualities.
The All-Hustle team isn’t about who the best baseball and softball players were. It honors the best teammates.
It is here where effort, discipline and coachability — traits that coaches wish they had in every player and upon which championships are built — are honored.
It is for that reason that this team is largely selected by area coaches and described in their own words.
Big Country Preps is now honored to present these individuals to you — the best team players (boys and girls) that the Big Country had to offer during the 2022 baseball and softball seasons.
The players below are listed in no particular order.
Back-to-back shutouts.
Under normal circumstances, that’s enough to capture the Capital Farm Credit/BCP Player of the Week award.
But when one of the shutouts is a no-hitter, that’s a rock-solid insurance policy.
In a week loaded with top-flight performances, Big Country Preps would have had a difficult time choosing the Capital Farm Credit Player of the Week.
But Stephenville pole vaulter Ben Kirbo made the decision easy by accomplishing something which hasn’t been done by a Stephenville track athlete in nearly three decades.
Even in high school baseball, perfect games are rare. Two perfect games in one week in the same league are extremely uncommon.
Two perfect games in one week, thrown by a pair of teammates are about as elusive as a Lochness Monster sighting.
And coincidentally, that’s about how often Big Country Preps names two players for the Capital Farm Credit/BCP Player of the Week.