CISCO — With girls coach Brent Kilpatrick and boys coach Kevin Hearne both out due to illness, it was up to a pair of understudies to guide the CHS varsity teams through a district doubleheader with Haskell on Tuesday.
Jack Eison took the clipboard for the Cisco girls, who opened the evening with a 57-48 win, after which former Cisco football standout Colton Kent grabbed the reins for the boys in a 66-30 win in the nightcap.
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CLYDE — The Haskell Indians knew it would take a near perfect game to beat Cisco in a Region I-2A Division I bi-district playoff game at Clyde’s Bulldog Stadium on Friday night.
The Loboes, however, were the ones that were perfect for the first 12:04 as they rattled off the first 41 points of the game on their way to a 55-28 win over the Indians.
Even more impressive was the fact that Cisco scored 13 points in the first 31 seconds of the game, which saw Hunter Long throw four touchdown passes to Dawson Hearne.
Haskell 37, Stamford 20 —Haskell overcame four turnovers to chalk up its second straight win and secure the No. 3 seed in district.
The Indians rushed for 219 yards as a team while limiting Stamford to 195 yards in total offense.
After kicking off our girls basketball position rankings series with the guards on Tuesday, we now turn our attention to the forwards.
For the second installment in our three-part series, we rank the area’s top 10 players at that position with some others to watch for in 2021-22.
We hope you enjoy our list.
Haskell 35, Anson 18 —Carter Rankin threw for 207 yards and two scores and added a rushing TD to lead Haskell (3-6, 1-3) to a crucial district win at Anson which throws the possible playoff scenarios into complete turmoil.
With the score tied at 7-7 at the break, Haskell took the game over with a 28-8 run through the second half.
It’s never a surprise to see Sweetwater senior quarterback Leo Holsey among the top performers in our Capital Farm Credit/Big Country Preps Player of the Week column.
Since his freshman year, the four-year starter has topped our weekly list multiple times, including this week after helping Sweetwater to a 61-37 win over Pecos on Friday.
Holsey only threw 15 passes, but he connected on 12 of them for 364 yards and five touchdowns. He also rushed six times for 75 yards and two more scores, giving him a direct hand in 439 yards and seven TDs.
Forsan 28, Haskell 0 — Forsan remained unbeaten behind 216 yards in combined rushing.
Nate Hernandez led the Buffaloes (8-0, 3-0) with 122 yards rushing and two scores on 14 carries. Sawyer Stallings was perfect through the air, going 6-for-6 for 59 yards and a score.
LAST WEEK: 35-11, .760
SEASON TOTAL: 322-74, .813
This week’s Big Country Preps Game of the Week will send me south to historic Hufford Field in Coleman, where the Bluecats (6-0) will play host to perennial power Cisco (6-1) in what is essentially the District 4-2A Division I championship.
Opened way back in 1934, Hufford is one of the Big Country’s oldest and most unique venues and if you are looking for a game to go to on Friday, this one will not only offer some good football, but some nostalgia as well.
The immense rock wall surrounding the field was built in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration or WPA as the nation battled its way out of The Great Depression.
Hope to see you there.
Here are this week’s picks:
It’s one thing to rush for more than 300 yards and three scores against a struggling program. We see that all the time from the area’s top running backs.
But it’s an entirely different thing when those yards come against a solid team with a sturdy defense. That’s earning it the hard way.
Jim Ned’s Xavier Wishert, our Capital Farm Credit/Big Country Preps Player of the Week, took that route on Friday night when he charted 313 yards rushing and three scores on just 20 carries in a 37-20 road win over the Wall Hawks.
Game photos courtesy of Joel Ashby, Amy Raschke and Carrie Gutierrez.
Dan Gainey had to collect his thoughts when asked the feeling at the end of the Colorado City Wolves at Haskell Indians football game Friday at Haskell.
“There are a lot of adjectives to describe it – crazy, nutty. Some things just don’t make any sense at all,” said Gainey, ninth-year head coach at Colorado City.
The finish — which involved two interceptions, a safety, the return of a squib kick for a touchdown and two attempts at the winning extra point – was unbelievable enough. But consider also that Colorado City’s 28-27 win over Haskell ended the Wolves’ 26-game losing streak that dated to 2018.
Colorado City 28, Haskell 27 — Chris Green took a kickoff back with less than a minute left in the game to give Colorado City a miraculous win at Haskell to snap a 26-game losing streak dating back to late 2018.
Trailing 27-19 with just under a to play, Chris Ortiz started the late rally by scoring a two-point safety with a sack in the Haskell end zone to pull the Wolves within six points.
LAST WEEK: 40-7, .851
SEASON TOTAL: 287-63, .820
Week 8? Are you kidding?
I ask the same question, or some variant of it virtually every year. We just finished with two-a-days. How can we possibly be this deep in the season so quickly?
Yet hear we are. A cold weather snap approaching. Thanksgiving right around the corner —as are the playoffs.
This week’s Game of the Week will see me traveling north to Ralls where the surprising Roscoe Plowboys, off to their best start in years, will be in a showdown for the district lead.
The column hit at 85 percent accuracy last week and is now up to 82 percent on the year. So we’ll see if we can keep the momentum going through the home stretch.
Let’s have a look at this week’s picks:
Each week here at Big Country Preps, we’ll post our picks for all of that week’s 11-man games, in addition to the results of Evan Ren’s Twitter polls for each matchup.
For those interested in voting, polls go up on Monday night each week and close Thursday morning.
Disagree with our picks or the Twitter consensus? Let us know in the comments section below.
Big Country Preps is publishing area volleyball statistical leaders each Tuesday at 7 p.m.
This database will be continually updated for our subscribers throughout the remainder of the season, using only those statistics submitted by area coaches.
We will continually update the database throughout the regular season.
Forsan 27, Colorado City 7 — Major Stockton threw for 68 yards and a score and rushed for 70 yards and another touchdown to lead Forsan to a win in the district opener for both clubs.
With the score knotted at 7 at halftime, Forsan gained the upper hand with 20 unanswered points in the second half.
LAST WEEK: 39-4, .906
SEASON TOTAL: 247-56, .815
Gramps Ren is back in the groove, hitting over 90 percent of his picks a week ago, to push this column’s season percentage to .815 as we head into district play across the area.
Whether or not I can keep the momentum remains to be seen, entering what might be the toughest week of area picks I’ve seen this year, with multiple games that I would rate as near-tossups.
This week’s Big Country Preps Game of the Week will see us heading to Tuscola where Jim Ned will begin its District 3-3A DI title defense against a red-hot, unbeaten team from Early.
Let’s have a look at this week’s picks …
Big Country Preps is publishing area volleyball statistical leaders each Tuesday at 7 p.m.
This database will be continually updated for our subscribers throughout the remainder of the season, using only those statistics submitted by area coaches.
We will continually update the database throughout the regular season.