Football: Bearcats head west to for area-round clash with Tascosa

In their playoff opener, the No. 1 Aledo Bearcats captured their latest bi-district championship in dominant fashion over the Saginaw Roughriders by a final score of 80-12. Aledo held a 14-6 lead after a surprising early score from Saginaw, but eviscerated the Roughriders defense from there with plenty of players seeing the field.

“It’s good to know we’re capable of scoring points like that,” Bearcats head coach Robby Jones said. “We got a lot of young kids in (to play) late in the game, got them some experience and, people ask, well, why’d you score 80? Well, we’re not going out there trying to score 80, but we’re also not going to tell our kids when they get in the game that they can’t go score, you can’t go play hard – that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get those guys ready when it’s their turn to get out there and go play.”

Following Saginaw’s touchdown, Aledo went on a tear, outscoring the Roughriders 28-0 in the second quarter and 59-6 overall from the Saginaw touchdown. Aledo did most of their damage on the ground, amassing 500 rushing yards and nine touchdowns. Seniors Brady Powell and Kaden Winkfield along with Jeremiah Johnson each posted 90-plus rushing yards and combined for eight of Aledo’s nine rushing scores with Rudy Moya (10 carries for 74 yards) collecting the other touchdown.

“Running the ball is always key, so we wanted to make sure last week that we were focusing a little bit more on the run game because a lot of our focus has been on the passing game,” Jones said. “We were able to get three guys almost over 100 yards, so that was good to see. It’s good to have depth. You’re not going to use those guys every game like that, but it is good to know that if one of the top two guys is a little banged up, we got two more guys that can fill in and do the job.”

While a busted coverage and playing against reserves shouldered responsibility for Saginaw’s two touchdowns, Jones said the defense takes pride in posting shutouts, but will have a tougher time with a more versatile offense in their area-round clash.

“It’s going to be a difficult task with Amarillo Tascosa’s flex bone triple-option – that offense has given us some problems in the past,” Jones said. “We handled it really well last year but there's always that possibility that somebody’s not taking care of their responsibility and the ball pops for a big gain. The one key we had last year was that everyone was taking care of their assignments – nobody was out of position or had their eyes where they weren’t supposed to be. They’ve got to have disciplined eyes, read their keys and know where they’re supposed to go. We did a really good job of that last year and need to do it again this year.”

Jones emphasized the importance of having disciplined eyes against quality ball fakes from a misdirection-heavy offense, one that was limited to seven points in the regional semifinals in last year’s playoff matchup between the two programs. Furthermore, the Bearcats are mindful of impact players Tascosa brings to the matchup on both sides of the ball.

“Their quarterback, Colton Fulton, has started for I believe three years. He was injured when they played us last year, so you have to be mindful of him,” Jones said. “And then defensively, Crush Johnson, who is 6-foot-4, 290 (pounds), is a defensive tackle committed to Texas Tech. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing a good job blocking him because he can disrupt an offense. They lost a ton of starters and were pretty senior-heavy last year, kind of like us, but I think they are better in the secondary than they were last year with a couple returning starters. They have a good, solid defense and they’re going to give us some problems.”

Aledo has been dominant at the line of scrimmage through each of its 11 wins and Jones does not see the production dropping off in the trenches this time around.

“As far as what we can control, which is how we play, I feel like our offensive and defensive lines have a really good chance of dominating this football game,” Jones said. “Now, will it happen? I can’t tell you that, but I feel good about our chances. We did a good job and opened up a lot of running lanes last year. We were able to run the football last year and then, of course, our defense for the most part stopped their offense. I feel like we can do the same thing this year.”

The game will take place at 7 p.m. Friday at Big Spring Memorial Stadium – nearly a four-hour drive from Aledo – but Jones is hopeful the fanbase will travel to support if their schedules allow for it.

“As for the fan base, I can’t tell you, because we’ve had a couple of home games where we didn’t have a huge crowd,” Jones said. “We had the Halloween game and didn’t have a big crowd, and we had a Thursday night game last week and didn’t have a very big crowd. You’ve got the Peewee Super Bowls that are taking place on Saturday, so I’m sure those parents don’t want to take their kids all the way to Big Spring the night before they have their big Super Bowl game. I hope the people of Aledo show up for these kids – these kids put in a lot of work and deserve to be supported by their community.”