“I told the boys I’m proud of them and the fight they showed the entire game,” Bearcats head coach Robby Jones said. “The defense holding them out there at the end and getting the shutout just shows what kind of pride these guys take in that.”
Aledo held Lancaster out of the end zone on the home team’s final drive as a pass attempt to the front-right corner of the end zone fell incomplete at the final horn. Aledo’s defense came in not looking just to dominate, but to own the scoreboard and the competition on the field.
“First and foremost, all glory to my Lord and savior Jesus Christ, but I feel like just going into the week, we knew we could’ve had a shutout last week — and there was some bitterness with that,” Bearcats linebacker Chase Wilburn said. “We knew going into halftime with the zero on the board, that was our main goal — we wanted that shutout. To shut out a 6A team like that, we played pretty good.”
Lancaster only entered the red zone twice throughout the game’s four quarters. The Tigers’ first trip was near the beginning of the second quarter while the latter occurred in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter with the outcome already decided.
Throughout the contest, Aledo’s defense showed its championship-level prowess by limiting the Tigers to just one explosive play of 20 yards or more while consistently funneling all the action back up the middle with great consistency in containing the outside run schemes by Lancaster.
“It was a great scheme by Coach (Brad) McCone and the defensive staff to ensure that we weren’t letting them get loose out wide,” Jones said. “We kept them in there where our big boys were and let them take care of it.”
The Bearcats battled with Lancaster to a scoreless draw until late in the second quarter. Senior defensive back Lamel Swanson halted a promising Tigers’ drive with an athletic interception that gave Aledo’s offense a fresh set of downs at the Lancaster 46 with 3:57 left before halftime. Aledo initially was forced to punt but, after drawing a roughing the kicker penalty, the Bearcats were back in business at the Lancaster 33 with less than two minutes to play. Aledo quarterback Nash McElree then found wideout Bayne Martin for a 27-yard connection that got Aledo within yards of the end zone. Eventually, McElree and Martin hooked up again, this time on 3rd-and-goal from the Lancaster 5 with 10.6 seconds remaining. Kaeden Weaver hauled in a surprise two-point conversion that gave Aledo an 8-0 lead at halftime.
The teams exchanged scoreless drives in the third quarter until Swanson went back to return a punt that was muffed at the Aledo 43 with 4:38 remaining in the third. Swanson quickly corrected the mistake with his second interception of the game on third down that gave Aledo the ball back at its own 35 with under three minutes in the quarter. Aledo eventually finished the drive with a 38-yard field goal off the foot of senior kicker Payton Shaffer with 10:25 to go in the fourth. At this point, Aledo held an 11-0 advantage.
“We showed some improvements, and that’s big because we’ve got to be able to throw the ball against teams that are going to try to stack the box or take away the run,” Jones said. “That’s something we’ve been able to do the last 20 years or so, so we’re going to continue to work on that. We’re going to continue to get better at it. We’re not going to see a secondary as good as we saw, hopefully anymore this year, but that was a very talented secondary that we were able to get some good passes off them and made some good plays against them.”
Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Bearcat defenders remained hungry and continued to wreak havoc in the Lancaster backfield. Casen Miller recorded a beautiful tackle for a loss that stalled an early fourth-quarter drive for Lancaster while Wilburn thumped Lancaster’s quarterback to the turf a yard short of a 4th-and-10 play near midfield. The continuous playmaking on defense transferred over to the offense for one final, clinching drive that pushed Aledo’s lead to three possessions at 18-0. Senior running back Brady Powell put the icing on the cake with his 21-yard scoring scamper with just minutes left in the game.
“Everyone did their jobs and we practice it all the time. We know what we’re doing, and we came out and showed them,” Powell said. “We never stopped, we kept pushing it — they got tired, we stayed good and we finished it. It felt awesome.”
Aledo had 73 yards through the air split between McElree and Lincoln Tubbs while the receptions were shared amongst star senior Kaydon Finley (three catches for 41 yards) and Martin (two catches for 32 yards and a score). Tubbs also added 18 rushing yards while Kaden Winkfield recorded 48 yards on 13 carries. Powell was the lead rusher with 14 carries for 111 yards and a touchdown.
“It’s a big confidence booster. It shows us where we’re at and what we need to work on,” Powell said of the win. “They (Lancaster) are a great team, and it shows exactly where we need to improve and get better at in practice.”
Along with fine-tuning the offense, Jones wants to see his players sharpen their intangibles as the team moves forward into the district portion of their schedule.
“Basically my message to them was to keep our composure,” Jones said. “We need to be more disciplined and not have any more unsportsmanlike penalties like we had. It was kind of ridiculous out there with some of what was going on, but we need to make sure that we are composed and we don’t retaliate against the other team.”
The Bearcats (2-0) begin district play at 7 p.m. Friday at home against Brewer, which has opened its season with wins over Saginaw (33-9) and Lake Dallas (14-10).
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