Santo 41, Chico 0 — The Wildcats had no trouble with the Dragons, snapping a four-game losing streak with a blowout victory.
Santo (2-4, 1-1) outgained Chico 386-56, building a 34-0 lead by halftime. Kalder Halbrook was at the forefront of that effort, rushing for 148 yards and a touchdown while adding 48 more yards and an additional score through the air.
Muenster 32, Santo 14 — Playing without senior quarterback Hut Thornton, who was lost for the year to a knee injury two weeks ago, the Wildcats struggled to find consistent offense against the Hornets, managing just 175 total yards in a three-score loss.
Kalder Halbrook passed for 111 yards and a touchdown and added a second score on the ground to lead Santo (1-4, 0-1), which also got 51 yards rushing from Justin Hollingsworth.
LAST WEEK: 46-12, .793
SEASON TOTAL: 229-61, .789
More often than not, Big Country Preps makes an appearance at the annual Stephenville-Brownwood matchup. Because more often than not, it produces a game worthy of one of Texas’ top rivalries.
This year is no exception as Stephenville travels to famous Gordon Wood Stadium for the Big Country Preps Game of the Week.
Collinsville 63, Lindsay 21 — The Pirates opened district play with a thorough win over the Knights, racing out to a 49-7 halftime lead and cruising from there to the blowout.
Logan Jenkins passed for 376 yards and six touchdowns to lead Collinsville (4-1, 1-0), which got productive receiving days from Reed Patterson (4-112, 3 TDs), Colin Barnes (4-94) and Landon Carpenter (3-71, 2 TDs).
LAST WEEK: 44-11, .800
SEASON TOTAL: 183-49, .788
Some weeks are just loaded with competitive area games and Week 5 of the 2023 season falls squarely into that category.
This week’s menu features six or seven games that under normal circumstances, would qualify for our Big Country Preps Game of the Week. This forces us to push some great matchups aside to select our spotlight game.
This week, we go with a battle of unbeatens — Class 3A Division I Clyde (4-0) at Class 4A Div. II Sweetwater (4-0) — at the famed Mustang Bowl at SHS.
Rio Vista 27, Santo 0 — The Wildcats struggled to take care of the football, turning the ball over seven times in a shutout loss to the Eagles.
Santo limited Rio Vista to just 47 rushing yards and 184 yards of total offense, but coach Devon Mann’s Wildcats managed only 134 yards of their own in falling to 1-3 on the year.
Hamilton 20, Santo 14 — A 14-0 halftime cushion proved just enough for the Bulldogs, who held off a Wildcat rally in the second half for their second consecutive win.
Hamilton rode a balanced offensive effort to a slight 265-236 edge in total yardage, rushing for 131 of those yards and passing for 134. The Bulldogs also forced the game’s only turnover.
Collinsville 51, Blue Ridge 14 — The Pirates were dominant for the second week in a row, passing for 463 yards in a blowout win over the Tigers.
Logan Jenkins was 34-of-44 passing for all of those yards with five touchdowns and one interception, while Colin Barnes (10-186, 1 TD) had a huge day catching the ball.
GOLDTHWAITE — Not since Nov. 5, 2021 had the Goldthwaite football team tasted victory — a span of time that was filled with 12 straight defeats.
The Eagles, however, put an end to one of the longest losing streaks in school history on Friday with come-from-behind 28-19 win over Santo in the Big Country Preps Game of the week.
After a summer-long effort to produce our football preview, it is good to be back in our school year routine — a big part of which is our Big Country Preps Player of the Week.
That said, we are proud to hand our first accolade for 2023-24 to Snyder senior quarterback Easton Stewart, who led the Tigers to a 42-0 season-opening win over Slaton last week.
COMANCHE — Strong straight-line winds or a small tornado?
Nothing is verified just yet, but one thing is for certain: Comanche High School has some work to do on both its concession stand and press box after being hit by high winds over the weekend.
The damage sustained was serious enough to force athletic director Jake Escobar to make contingency plans for home dates until further notice.
“The roof of the concession stand flew off about 100 yards,” Escobar said. “Part of the press box roof fell off and our ag building, which is a big tin building —its roof broke open and it was pretty bad.”
Santo 27, Electra 14 — Hut Thornton rushed for 136 yards and a touchdown, while Memphis Prosser added 74 yards and three scores to fuel the Wildcats to a two-touchdown win over Electra in the season opener-for both teams.
Santo, which scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to increase a five-point lead to 19, outgained Electra 309-273 and took advantage of two fumble recoveries to win its third opener in a row.
Entering his seventh year as the Santo head football coach, Devon Mann has yet to experience a losing season. To find the last time any Wildcats squad did, you’d have to go all the way back to 2012.
To say that Santo is immune to a rebuilding season is probably a stretch. But it’s hard to argue with culture and tradition being built on that campus.
With a clear identity based around their flexbone offensive attack and a hard-nosed 4-4 defense, the Wildcats are in the midst of their longest run of sustained success in program history. And it’s no coincidence that that stretch just happens to coincide with their longest run of coaching and schematic continuity as well.
Coming off their best two-year stretch in program history, the Santo Wildcats will have their mettle tested in 2023.
After following an 11-2 campaign in 2021 with 10 wins last season, SHS will find out this fall if it’s a “reload” program or a “rebuild” one.
The Wildcats return just 10 of 24 lettermen from last year’s team, including three offensive and four defensive starters, and they’ll be leaning on call-ups from a 5-4 junior varsity team for depth. But coach Devon Mann, who is now in his seventh year as the Santo head coach, is confident his squad will find a way to compete at a high level this season despite any perceived disadvantages it may face.
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. 16. 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 July 31, we’ll be spotlighting each 11-man team in the area and posing some of the key questions they’ll face in 2023 as part of our annual “Countdown to Two-a-Days” series.
We continue in Class 2A Division II with the Santo Wildcats. On Tuesday we will take a look at the Hico Tigers, followed by the Forsan Buffaloes on Wednesday.
Continue reading “COUNTDOWN TO TWO-A-DAYS: The Santo Wildcats … 35 days to two-a-days”
AUSTIN — After a slow start in the field events on Friday saw the Big Country net just four medals, things heated up in the evening session when the track events got rolling.
Big Country athletes picked up 10 medals under the lights at Mike A. Meyers Stadium at the University of Texas, giving the area 14 for the day.
On top of that, the Stamford girls team finished in a three-way tie with Refugio and Panhandle with 32 points to claim a share of the state championship. Goldthwaite’s girls finished three points back in fourth.
SPRINGTOWN — Big Country athletes made a big showing at the Region II-2A track meet, collecting a combined 37 medals and clinching 28 state berths over the two-day event at Porcupine Stadium.
Along the way, Albany and Cisco went 1-2 in the boys team race, while Stamford shared the girls team title with Era and Hamilton.
The Albany Lions had the highest point total of any program, boys or girls, collecting five medals on the way to 70 points, while the Cisco boys followed closely behind with 67 points. Stamford finished third in the boys team race with 64 points, while the girls earned 56 points to finish in a three-way tie atop the team standings.
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: Santo-Wink football playoff (70 images)”
COLORADO CITY — Playing without standout quarterback Hut Thornton, who injured his shoulder in last week’s bi-district win over Seymour, the Santo football team battled unbeaten Wink for four quarters Thursday in its Region II-2A Division II area-round matchup at Wolf Stadium. But ultimately the black and orange Wildcats were just a little too much for the green ones in a 35-19 win.
SHS, which was down to its third signal caller by game’s end due to a third-quarter targeting call on backup Billy Sandoval, found itself down just 21-19 in the opening minute of the final period. But Wink scored two touchdowns in the final nine minutes to put away coach Devon Mann’s squad.
The loss ended Santo’s season at 10-2, capping the best two-year run in program history at 21-4.
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: Santo-Seymour football playoff (39 images)”
Cisco 55, Reagan County 0 — The Loboes dominated Reagan County, rolling up 555 yards in total offense, of which 378 were on the round.
Hunter Long and Trent Huston combined for 263 yards rushing and four touchdowns to lead Cisco (9-2), which led 42-0 at the break.
CLYDE — Santo coach Devon Mann challenged his squad to bully Seymour in its playoff opener Friday night at Clyde’s Bulldog Stadium, and the Wildcats answered him resoundingly.
Santo never trailed but needed an onside kick recovery with 15 seconds left to escape the Region II-2A Division II bi-district matchup with a 28-20 win in frigid conditions.
After highlighting the Big Country’s top guards and forwards the past two nights, we now take a look at the area’s best big men.
For the final installment in our three-part boys basketball position rankings series, we rank the Big Country’s top 10 post players.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading through our rankings, and make sure to check back for all our boys and girls basketball coverage this season.
After kicking off our boys basketball position rankings series on Tuesday with the guards, we now shift 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 for 2022-23.
We hope you enjoy our list.
With boys basketball season beginning this week, it’s time to shine a spotlight on some of the players you’ll be reading about throughout the 2022-23 season.
For the first installment in a three-part series that will cover all positions on the area boys basketball scene, we’ll be taking a look at the Big Country’s top guards, ranking our top 10 with a list of others to watch this winter.
We hope you enjoy reading through our list.
Santo 42, Era 0 — The Wildcats closed out the regular season with a shutout win over the Hornets, piling up 345 rushing yards in the victory.
Five players had at least one rushing touchdown for Santo (9-1, 5-1), which led 35-0 by halftime. Billy Sandoval (4-70 rushing) ran for a pair of TDs, while Hut Thornton (18-107), Hunter Branham (2-64), Kash Johnson (3-61) and Jake Bryan (1-5) each had one score.
After focusing on the top guards and forwards the Big Country has to offer the past two nights, it’s time to shift our attention to the paint.
For the final installment in our three-part position rankings series, we list our top-10 post players for the 2022-23 season.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading through these rankings, and make sure to come back next week when we’ll feature the top boys basketball players in the Big Country.
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 2022-23.
We hope you enjoy our list.
With the girls basketball season upon us, it’s time to take a look at the local and area players who will be making the biggest impact for their teams during the 2022-23 season.
For the first installment in a three-part series that will cover all positions, we’ll be focusing on the Big Country’s top guards, ranking our top 10 with a list of others to watch this season.
As with any such list, these rankings are subjective. We hope you enjoy reading through our selections.
Santo 20, Celeste 17 — The Wildcats rallied for a huge win over Blue Devils, scoring in the fourth quarter to erase a 17-13 deficit and clinch the No. 2 playoff seed out of this league.
Santo (8-1, 4-1) outgained Celeste 275-261, but the Wildcats found themselves down 10-6 in the third quarter and 17-13 in the fourth. Kash Johnson’s second touchdown run — an eight-yarder — proved to be the game-winner thanks to a key defensive play late by Jacob Farquhar.
Collinsville 39, Santo 28 — The Wildcats suffered their first loss of the season, experiencing uncharacteristic struggles on the defensive end against the Pirates.
Collinsville, which scored more points in this game than Santo had allowed to its first seven opponents combined (37 points), passed for 271 yards and a pair of touchdowns and got single rushing scores from quarterback Logan Jenkins and Rylan Newman to knock off Santo. The Pirates (7-1, 4-0) also took advantage of three Santo turnovers, turning one into a defensive score and a 31-21 lead in the fourth quarter.