Southlake Outlasts Trinity 56-48, Dragons 1-0 in District Play

Written By: Jay Pace

One of the biggest rivalries in the state of Texas took center stage Friday night as a pair of unbeaten heavyweights went to battle in Euless. It was a showdown featuring two of the best programs the Lone Star State has to offer. It featured a pair of District 4-6A rivals in Southlake Carroll and Euless Trinity, in a highly anticipated matchup.

All week the build up for this game was high. All season, as well as a large portion of the offseason, coaches, players and pundits alike had this game circled on their calendar. And for good reason.

With the star studded rosters featuring a dozen or more college prospects, coupled with the major postseason implications sure to emerge from a game of this magnitude, the hype train was at a fever pitch by the time toe met leather at a highly partisan H.E.B Pennington Field in Friday night in Bedford. This game didn't disappoint.

In the end, Southlake Carroll and it's arsenal of offensive weaponry emerged with the win. The Dragons withstood a hostile road environment to remain unbeaten, picking up a hard fought and well earned 56-48 win over one of its chief rivals.

Southlake comes in at No.6 in the latest rankings in the state polls. It was the Dragons second consecutive win over a top program after knocking off No.16 Byron Nelson last week 33-21. The Dragons moved to 4-0 on the season while Trinity, who entered at No. 36 in the state, fell to 3-1.

A Tale Of Two Halves

For awhile, actually the entire first half, a game with all the requisite hype of a heavyweight boxing match was more Tyson vs. Spinks than Ali vs. Frazier.

Southlake Carroll struck first when running back Riley Wormley capped an 85 yard scoring drive with a one yard touchdown run on the Dragons opening possession. Southlake took an early 7-0 lead. The USC commit had another big night, leading all rushers with 181 yards on the ground and two touchdowns. Davis Penn, the other half of Southlake’s two headed monster at running back, extended the lead to 14-0 on a 5-yard scamper late in the first quarter.

With the game quickly getting out of hand and a partisan crowd nearly silenced, Trinity picked itself up off the mat when junior quarterback TJ Tupou made a dazzling play with his feet. He got outside the pocket, avoiding the rush, rolling to his right, firing a strike to his well covered tight end Lukas Sanchez in the front of the end zone with 1:39 in the first quarter to give Trinity it's first points of the night and trim the deficit to 14-7.

On it's first play of the ensuing drive, Southlake answered rather emphatically as Wormley found a seam and raced down the far sideline for a 75 yard score to extend the lead to 21-7 following the PAT.

The Dragons lead swelled to 28 at one point in the first half before a Trinity touchdown made it 35-14 going into halftime. Trinity scored touchdowns on six straight possessions and managed to pull within one score on three separate occasions in the second half.

Neither team had much success defensively as a first half blowout morphed into a second half track meet with both teams moving the ball at will.

Clinging to a 49-41 lead with five minutes remaining in regulation, Dragons quarterback Angelo Renda connected with Blake Gunter for a 14 yard touchdown pass to extend the lead to double digits at 56-41. Renda was flawless Friday night, accounting for 398 total yards and 5 touchdowns.

Trinity quickly answered to pull back to within a score at 56-48 with 2:53 remaining in the 4th quarter. And then things got interesting.

Trinity’s defense, on it's heels for most of the night, forced a timely three-and-out, putting the ball back in the hands of it's red-hot offense with a chance to tie things up in regulation. But in the end it was too little too late as Southlake’s defense responded with a stop of it's own to preserve a 56-48 win.

Next week, Southlake Carroll welcomes Keller Timber Creek to Dragon Stadium while Euless Trinity travels to Byron Nelson.