As the 2024 version of the Stephenville football team finished off its home slate with a 44-0 win over longtime rival Brownwood on Friday night, it also marked the end of an era.
It was the last time that the Yellow Jackets will play a home game at Tarleton State University’s Memorial Stadium.
The fact that it was a game against their bitter rival closing out the run was not lost on many.
STEPHENVILLE — In the first half of Friday’s District 4-4A Division I matchup, Brownwood held rival Stephenville to just 96 yards of total offense even though the Yellow Jackets held a 13-0 lead at the break.
The good feelings on the Brownwood sideline didn’t last very long after that.
No. 4 Stephenville ended its run at Tarleton State’s Memorial Stadium with a 44-0 win to clinch at least a share of the district championship, earning a bi-district playoff matchup with San Angelo Lake View in the process.
Photos provided by Melissa Carroll and Kelly Moody
There’s a great deal of excitement brewing around the Tolar volleyball team heading into postseason play and with good reason. If the Lady Rattlers (28-9, 12-1 District 8-3A) manage to knock off Comanche on Tuesday, they will set a school record for wins in a season.
Secondly, senior setter Abbie Soileau is dishing assists like they were going out of style — including the 47 she tallied last week in wins over No. 25 Peaster and Early. That lifted her season total to a Tolar school record 1,032 assists on the year and more 1,700 for her career.
Brownwood 31, Burnet 30 — 
In perhaps the most exciting game produced in the Big Country on Friday, Brownwood held off Burnet in overtime.
Judson Coalson threw for 275 yards and three scores and rushed for 121 yards to lead the Lions.
LAST WEEK: 41-10 .803
SEASON TOTAL: 367-108, .772
Football season doesn’t feel complete without at least one visit to Chesley Field in Cisco. And Friday night, the Big Country Preps Game of the Week will stop by for a crucial District 4-2A DI matchup between the Loboes (5-2, 1-1) and Hawley (7-0, 2-0).
For Hawley, a win here will keep open the possibility of an unbeaten regular season. For Cisco, a victory would signal the beginning of a climb back into area prominence.
Big Country Preps is publishing area volleyball statistical leaders each Tuesday at 7 p.m. roughout the regular season.
This database will be continually updated for our subscribers throughout the remainder of the season, using only those statistics submitted by area coaches.
With the Albany Lions winning last week’s district game with Winters by a score of 60-0, there were ample opportunities for the Lions to produce a Player of the Week-worthy performance.
They found one in senior Branson Beal, who rushed 11 times for 144 yards and five scores. He also caught a 46-yard TD pass to chart six touchdowns on the night.
“He might have the quickest feet of any (player) I have coached,” Albany coach Denney Faith said. “Combine that with great vision it makes him fun to watch.”
Stephenville 63, Marble Falls 0 — The Yellow Jackets coasted to the win behind 546 yards in total offense.
Ryan Gafford topped the stat sheet for Stephenville with 222 yards passing and four scores.
The Yellow Jackets improved to 6-1 and 1-0 with the win; Marble Falls fell to 2-6 and 0-2.
Lampasas 30, Brownwood 20 — Trailing 20-17 at the end of the third quarter, Lampasas closed the game with a 28-yard TD from Haegan Oncken at the 11:00 mark.
Two possessions later, Corbin Dotson scored with a 28-yard TD with three minutes left.
Brownwood was led by Judson Coalson with 116 yards passing and 54 yards and two TDs rushing. Trey Mosley added 58 yards and a score on the ground.
LAST WEEK: 32-12, .809
SEASON TOTAL: 279-91, .757
Now it’s time to get down to business.
With most of the Big Country taking an open date last Friday as a prelude to district play, we now dive headfirst into the games that count the most.
District play opens tomorrow for most leagues in the area, the intensity of which is already tangible.
Can you feel it?
We’ll see you on the road.
Here’s this week’s area picks:
Brownwood 55, Ingleside 7 — Judson Coalson threw for 257 yards and three TDs and Trey Mosley rushed for 136 yards and two more scores to help Brownwood to an easy win over Ingleside.
The Lions (3-2) quickly jumped out to a 27-0 first half lead and never looked back.
Limited to 226 yards in total offense, Ingleside fell to 4-2.
Stephenville 38, Waco La Vega 28 — 
The Yellow Jackets gradually built a 38-14 lead by the 11-minute mark of the fourth quarter, capped by a 46-yard TD run by Sawyer Wilkerson.
SHS then had to hold off a late La Vega rally attempt which saw the Pirates add a pair of late touchdowns, including a 1-yard scoring run by Bryson Roland to get La Vega within two scores with four minutes left.
Hawley’s Keagan Ables is no stranger to the Big Country Preps Player of the Week column — appearing among our top performers multiple times over the last three years.
However, his latest effort to help HHS defeat De Leon 54-21 on Friday, may rank as one of his best.
The Hawley senior connected on 16 of 32 passes for 441 yards and six touchdowns to help Hawley improve to 4-0 on the year.
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: Stephenville-Wylie football (88 images)”
LAST WEEK: 47-11, .810
SEASON TOTAL: 141-59, .705
After nosediving in Week 2 with one of the worst pick records I’ve ever had, the column rebounded in Week 3 with an .810 percentage to push my overall tally over .700 again.
As for this week’s Big Country Preps Game of the Week, Mr. Yale Youngblood will be on hand in Tolar to cover Comanche’s road game with the Rattlers in what should be a fun one.
I’ll be heading to Ballinger, where the Bearcats (3-0) will play host to Brady (2-1) in a battle of upstarts.
Let’s dive into this week’s picks:
Versatility is a definite advantage for nominees in our Big Country Preps Player of the Week column. And for Anson senior quarterback Corey Layne it was enough to put him in this week’s top spot.
Leading the Tigers (3-0) to a 49-28 over Dublin, Layne connected on 18 of 27 throws for 284 yards and four touchdowns. He also rushed eight times for 65 more yards and two additional scores.
Layne was equally effective from his linebacker spot, collecting 10 tackles and one interception.
Stephenville 45, Godley, 0
Ryan Gafford threw for 296 yards and three scores to lead Stephenville to an easy win over Godley.
The Yellow Jackets raced out to a 35-0 halftime lead before putting it into cruise control.
Sawyer Wilkerson led the Yellow Jackets’ (3-0) on the ground with 80 yards rushing and three scores.
Continue reading “DISTRICT 4-4A DIV. I WEEK 3 REPORT: Stephenville dominates Godley to improve 3-0”
LAST WEEK: 46-28, .621
SEASON TOTAL: 94-48, .661
Abysmal.
That’s about the only adjective that comes to mind when trying to describe my Big Country football picks, which are off to the single worst start through two weeks that I’ve ever experienced in 18 years of covering area football.
A percentage of .621 after two weeks of play is beatable by throwing darts, flipping coins, or even consulting with your local horoscope page. Yet here I sit, trying to dig myself out of the hole I’ve created. But enough of that, Glen Rose at Brownwood is our Big Country Preps Game of the Week, in a week filled with interesting matchups.
Let’s have a look at them:
Brownwood 17, Wall 7 — Trey Mosley ran for 223 yards and two touchdowns on 33 carries to lift the Lions to a win over the Hawks in their first game of the year.
Brownwood (1-0), which had its opener against Wylie canceled due to lightning, went to halftime tied at 7-all, and the score stayed there through the third quarter. But the Lions closed the game with 10 unanswered points in the fourth to pull away for the two-score victory.
DE LEON — Entering this football it was expected that De Leon junior quarterback Heston Jobe would be among the top producers in the Big Country.
It took him all of one night to prove it in a 79-43 win over Dublin on Friday.
Jobe, who connected on 13 of 20 throws for 413 yards and four scores, also rushed for 176 yards and four more TDs.
By night’s end, the Bearcats were 1-0 and Jobe had accounted for 589 yards and five touchdowns.
Stephenville 38, Midlothian Heritage 3 — Ryan Gafford threw for 242 yards and two scores as the Yellow Jackets dominated Class 5A Heritage.
Tristian Gentry was Gafford’s favorite target, resulting in four receptions for 109 yards and a score. Comanche Transfer Sawyer Wilkerson led the ‘Jackets in rushing with 48 yards on eight carries and one TD.
LAST WEEK: 0-0, .000
SEASON TOTAL: 00-00, .000
Week 1 is often loaded with difficult picks and 2024 is no exception.
Our first slate of games this year has a number of contests that could have qualified for the Big Country Preps Game of the Week. But we finally settled on Albany at Stamford for the spotlight.
The two-time defending state 2A DII state champions, minus several key players lost to graduation, facing a Stamford club bringing back most of its skill and a ton of speed.
STEPHENVILLE — Just a few months after Stephenville’s Class 3A DI state football championship in 2012, a young coach, Jeremiah Butchee, brought his family to town looking for work.
He found it as an assistant coach under former SHS coach Joe Gillespie. Twelve years later he has remained on staff through the tenures of Greg Windor and now, Sterling Doty with no plans of ever leaving.
After considerable prayer, Jeremiah and his wife, Julie, wanted the decision to come to SHS be an easy one and they wanted the decision to stay to be just as simple.
Both prayers were answered.
The couple has since raised their three sons, Mason, Jack and Hudson in Stephenville, all three have been standout football players and all three have made considerable contributions to a highly successful 12-year run for the SHS program.
STEPHENVILLE — For your average Class 4A football program, the loss of 32 lettermen to graduation is enough to inspire whispers of “rebuilding year.”
Stephenville, however, isn’t your average Class 4A football program.
In fact, even after the loss of 32 experienced players, the Yellow Jackets still enter the 2024 football season ranked No. 1 in Class 4A DI by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine. To put that into perspective, the remainder of District 4-4A DI (Brownwood, Lampasas, Burnet and Marble Falls) must replace an average of 16 lettermen this year — only half of that lost by the Yellow Jackets.
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. 21. 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. 5, we’ll be spotlighting each 11-man team in the area and posing some of the key questions they’ll face in 2024 as part of our annual “Countdown to Two-a-Days” series.
Today, we take a look at the Stephenville Yellow Jackets.
Continue reading “COUNTDOWN TO TWO-A-DAYS: The Stephenville Yellow Jackets … two days to two-a-days”
OTHER 2024 ALL-BIG COUNTRY PREPS TEAMS
Our All-Big Country Preps Softball and Baseball Teams, released Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, are in place to honor those who achieved the most on-field success in 2024. It is off the field, however, where character, grit, and work ethic are often measured. And it is with our Big Country Preps All-Hustle Team that we wish to honor those players, male and female, who were (simply put) the hardest-working, best teammates in the area this spring.
This team isn’t about who the best baseball and softball players were.
The All-Hustle team honors effort, discipline, toughness, coachability and selflessness — traits that coaches wish they had in every player and upon which championships are built.
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 the Big Country had to offer during the 2024 season.
The players below are listed in no particular order.
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: 2024 State LineMAN Challenge (165 images)”
LUBBOCK — Pushed to the brink of elimination by an emotional Game 1 loss to Canyon on Thursday, the Stephenville baseball team rallied from a 3-1 sixth-inning deficit to defeat the Eagles 5-3 in Game 2 and force a decisive third game Friday at Texas Tech’s Dan Law Field.
But the Yellow Jackets’ postseason magic — and a wildly successful 2024 campaign — ended with the rubber match, as Canyon responded with a 5-4 win in Game 3 to deny Stephenville its second state tournament trip in four years.
The finale, which saw the Eagles score two runs in the bottom of the fifth to break a 3-all tie, closed the books on an intense regional finals series that was ultimately decided by a single run. And in reflecting on the highly competitive three-game set, during which both teams posted identical run totals, SHS coach Justin Swenson said the Eagles were just a little bit cleaner than his team was over the two days in Lubbock.
Here are the Big Country baseball playoff roundups for this week. Continue reading “BASEBALL PLAYOFF ROUNDUP: Four area teams still alive in hunt for state title”
STEPHENVILLE — The Stephenville baseball team has had plenty of bad luck this year during the postseason when it comes to weather delays.
Saturday afternoon, that bad luck continued at James T. Young Field.
As Seminole’s Marco Reyes’ stepped into the batter’s box with his team down 3-2 to start the seventh inning, the lightning alarms went off, leading to a lengthy delay of more three hours.
Once the game resumed, Stephenville saw a bloop single tie the game before Kutter Stone’s walk-off sacrifice fly gave the Yellow Jackets a 4-3 win, clinching their fourth consecutive trip past the Region I-4A semifinals.
SEMINOLE — The bad news for Stephenville is that the Yellow Jackets didn’t bring their absolute “A” game to the opener of the Region I-4A semifinal series with Seminole on Thursday.
The good news for the ‘Jackets is … neither did Seminole. And by the end of the evening, Stephenville had notched a 5-1 win to take the early series lead.
Mason Haynes was 3 for 4 with a double and an RBI and Wacey Dill worked five shutout innings to lead Stephenville (27-10-1) which can close the series with a win in Game 2 set for 4 p.m. on Saturday in Stephenville. Game 3 (if needed), will follow 30 minutes after Game 2.
Here are the recaps of the Big Country softball playoff results in the second round of the postseason: Continue reading “SOFTBALL PLAYOFF ROUNDUP: Despite weather, 12 area teams advance to third round with Bangs-Stamford outcome still pending”
AUSTIN — The UIL Track & Field State Meet kicked off Thursday with Classes 3A and 4A competing at Mike Meyers Stadium on the campus of the University of Texas, and Big Country athletes made their presence felt to start to the three-day affair.
Area competitors didn’t quite match the 14 medals accrued on the opening day of the 2023 state meet, but they still made a solid showing with 10 combined medals.
Headlining the list of medalists were Brock’s Dylan Foster (300-meter hurdles), Stephenville’s Creece Brister (shot put) and Brownwood’s Ike Hall (triple jump), who all left Austin with gold medals. Continue reading “STATE TRACK ROUNDUP: Stephenville’s Brister, Brownwood’s Hall and Brock’s Foster claim gold medals at 3A/4A meet”
STEPHENVILLE — Creece Brister could have very easily chosen to feel sorry for himself in the aftermath of a devastating knee injury suffered during the football season.
He instead chose to count his blessings and to get back to work.
Track season was right around the corner and moping wasn’t going to help the defending Class 4A state shot put champion prepare for the event. So the 6-foot-5, 310-pounder (who also earned state silver in the discus last year) put his nose to the grindstone and began prepping in earnest in November.
The effort has now paid off with regional titles in both the shot put and discus, giving him two state berths despite being less than 100 percent. He will compete in both events in the 2024 UIL State Track & Field Meet at Mike A. Myers Stadium on Thursday in Austin.
ABILENE — With their backs against the wall after dropping Game 1 of their best-of-three bi-district series to Sweetwater, the Stephenville Honeybees kept their season alive Friday with a 9-4 win at Abilene Cooper’s Cougar Diamond.
Batting to start the do-or-die Game 2, Stephenville put up two runs in each of the first two innings to build an early lead and answered any attempts at a Sweetwater comeback to pull away in the latter innings and force a deciding third game at 6 p.m. Saturday at he same site.
Mattie-Lynn Dunnam and Presley Gaitan combined to limit the Lady Mustangs to just five hits and got a big game from their lineup, which supplemented seven hits with three walks, two hit batsmen and four Sweetwater errors.
ABILENE — The Sweetwater Lady Mustangs struck the first blow in their best-of-three bi-district series against Stephenville on Thursday, topping the Honeybees 5-3 at Abilene Cooper’s Cougar Diamond to pull within a win of advancing to the Region I-4A area round.
Sweetwater, District 5-4A’s No. 3 seed, scored two runs in the top of the first to take a lead it would hold the rest of the way, adding a single run in the fifth and two in the seventh to go up 5-1 before Stephenville tried to mount a rally in its final at-bat.
Pitcher Mikayla Ashley was strong in the circle, allowing just one earned run in a complete-game effort to best her counterpart Presley Gaitan and give the Lady Mustangs a chance to close out the series when it resumes at 7 p.m. Friday at the same site.
Here are the area’s baseball statistical leaders through April 25.
Statistics are from throughout the Big Country Preps circulation area as submitted by coaches. These lists will be continually updated as we receive more submissions.
There is very little that Eula’s Halie Cauthen isn’t good at athletically. Already an Honorable Mention All-Big Country Preps basketball player, the EHS junior showed her full range of versatility last week with three big performances in three different sports.
To begin with, Cauthen opened the week by qualifying for the 1A state golf tournament as an individual at the regional tournament, closing with rounds of 103 and 105.
Then, after playing 54 holes of golf in three days, Cauthen rushed back to compete for the district championship in softball against Cross Plains.
With a game time of 7:30 p.m., she arrived from the golf tournament at 7:25 and went 4 for 4 with three triples, three RBIs and four runs scored to help Eula clinch the district title in a 10-1 victory.
But Cauthen wasn’t finished quite yet.
LUBBOCK — Big Country athletes made a strong showing at the Region I-4A track meet Friday and Saturday at Lowrey Field, combining to earn 19 medals and 12 automatic bids to the state meet May 2 in Austin.
Between the boys and girls competitions, area entries accounted for eight gold medals, four silvers and seven bronzes, while the Stephenville boys did enough to edge Canyon by two points for the team title.
The Yellow Jackets finished with 59 points, headlined by double gold medalist Creece Brister, who won both throwing events. Brownwood, meanwhile, had the highest girls finish, taking third with 48 points, led by gold medals from Kaya Phillips in the 200 and its 800-meter relay team.
Here are the area’s baseball statistical leaders through April 18.
Statistics are from throughout the Big Country Preps circulation area as submitted by coaches. These lists will be continually updated as we receive more submissions.
Here are the area’s softball statistical leaders through April 18.
With the end of the regular season, this will be our FINAL softball leaders posting for 2024.
Statistics are from throughout the Big Country Preps circulation area as submitted by coaches. These lists will be continually updated as we receive more submissions.