FOOTBALL: Second-half surge sparks No. 1 Aledo

The No. 1 Aledo Bearcats found themselves deadlocked in a 7-7 draw in the first quarter Friday night inside of the Birdville ISD Fine Arts and Athletic Complex. Aledo senior running back Kaden Winkfield scored on a 56-yard rushing touchdown only to see Birdville defender Jacob Martinez run back a game-tying, 75-yard pick six with 4:54 left in the first quarter.

After that, though, it was all Aledo.

The Bearcats were able to pull away for a 21-7 halftime lead and salted the game away with a 28-point explosion in the third quarter. In the end, the Bearcats emerged from Birdville with a 56-7 victory, the Bearcats’ 127th consecutive league win.

“We came out and executed better. I told them that you don’t have to have a Lombardi speech all the time,” Bearcats head coach Robby Jones said. “I told the guys they needed to get themselves ready to play. I felt like we were just going through the motions with no inspiration, no fire within us in that first half. We can’t come out and play like that.”

On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, Aledo had the ball at its own 27 yard line. Needing just one play, junior quarterback Nash McElree flipped a screen pass to star wideout Kaydon Finley in the flat, who did the rest. The 6-foot-2 senior weaved through and past defenders and raced down the sidelines untouched for the 73-yard score that increased the advantage to 28-7 with only 23 seconds elapsed off the third-quarter clock.

The Bearcat defense forced a three-and-out on its ensuing series that set up another momentum-shifting play for Aledo as senior defensive back Lamel Swanson returned the punt 50 yards to the Birdville 14 with 10:29 to go in the third.

“The energy was flat in the first half, so coming out in the second half, I knew I had to make a big play,” Swanson said. “On kickoff, I couldn’t do it, so I had to make sure I did it on the punt return and got it done. I should have scored, though, I did look a little slow.”

Although he was not able to score on the play, running back Jeremiah Johnson finished off the short scoring drive with a 1-yard plunge about 30 seconds later to make it a 35-7 lead.

“Lamel’s a great football player, does a great job in the punt return and has done so for two years now,” Jones said of Swanson. “And yeah, he set us up, got us going and put us in great field position. He is a great football player.”

From there, the floodgates opened for Aledo on offense while the defense remained suffocating. Senior safety Kamron Hall recovered a muffed kickoff return by Birdville to set his offense up in plus territory once again. Aledo marched down the field in eight plays and scored on 4th-and-3 in a goal-to-go situation as Winkfield found paydirt out of the Wildcat formation. At this point, Aledo held a 42-7 lead with 6:17 left in the quarter. Minutes later, backup running back Rudy Moya broke free for a 98-yard house call that pushed the margin to 49-7 at the 1:35 mark of the third.

Johnson found the end zone one more time with less than five minutes to go in the fourth to secure the 49-point win. Despite that, Aledo is still looking to refine and retool its craft, and while Aledo drew three personal foul penalties, the infractions were related to additional effort rather than conduct.

“We’re getting some aggressive, physical penalties where we’re going a little beyond the whistle,” Jones said. “We’ve got to clean that up, not do those things and I told them we’re doing stupid things at times — we need to play physical, but play smart. We want to clean those things up and then make sure we’re continuing to get better and better with the passing game and everything else.”

The passing offense and defense overcame respective early hurdles. The offense took a while to begin hitting receivers consistently while the secondary got beat on a 43-yard passing play by Birdville on the first play from scrimmage. Despite that, the team was able to reset and refocus quickly to gain control in the contest.

“On the short-term memory, we have a thing where it’s, ‘next play, next down,’” Swanson said. “A big play might happen, but it’s onto the next down. We can’t control what just happened, so we focus on the present and get it done.”

McElree led the passing attack with 140 passing yards and two passing touchdowns with three carries for 17 yards. Meanwhile, Lincoln Tubbs completed three of his five pass attempts for 27 yards, carried the ball five times for 40 yards, and caught a 13-yard pass. Finley had a 73-yard receiving touchdown while junior wideout Bayne Martin had three catches for 51 yards and a score.

Winkfield amassed 11 carries for 104 yards and two scores while Moya had his 97-yard touchdown run. Brady Powell added 58 yards and a touchdown on nine carries while Johnson recorded 18 rushing yards and two touchdowns.

Tymon Meeks was disruptive on the interior with two big sacks and multiple tackles for a loss while Cooper Cyphers also chipped in with a sack and several stops. Swanson added an interception that halted a second-quarter Birdville drive.

The Bearcats (4-0, 2-0) will take the field again at 7 p.m. Friday at home against Fossil Ridge (1-3, 0-2). The Panthers are coming off a 27-14 home loss to Granbury.