The Cooldown: Week 15
Regional Champions have been crowned! Now, there are seven Houston area teams with a shot to advance to the state championships in Arlington with a mix of familiar faces and new faces.
At least one team from the Houston area will have a shot at a state title because Columbus faces Edna with the winner going to state. However, it’s expected that more than just the winner of that game will be representing Houston at state.
Let’s recap what was a thrilling regional finals round, preview the state semifinals and name a POTW.
North Shore continues playoff dominance against Atascocita
Region III is still the North Shore invitational.
The Mustangs won Region III for the seventh consecutive season with a 49-21 romping of an Atascocita team the Mustangs barely beat in the regular season.
Quarterback Kaleb Bailey was the catalyst for North Shore in this game as he typically has been since leading the Mustangs to their last state championship in 2021, Bailey’s freshman season. But this game stands out more so than many of the others he’s played in his four years of high school ball.
Save for a state championship game, the stakes don’t get much bigger than a regional championship game between teams ranked in the top seven in the entire state. Bailey played accordingly. He finished an incredibly efficient 16-of-19 passing for 202 yards, two touchdowns and an INT. The Mustangs signal caller outdid himself on the ground with 10 rushes for 261 yards and two more scores. That ranks among the top individual performances of any player in the area this season, and it came in the biggest game of the year to date.
Backup quarterback Kaleb Maryland got some burn as well, with five carries for 54 yards and two touchdowns of his own. D’Andre Hardeman was the leading non-QB rusher for North Shore, with 82 yards and a score on 18 carries.
Quanell Farrakhan has been Bailey’s top target all season; he finished with seven catches for 124 yards and two touchdowns. His pair of touchdown grabs gives him 24 for the season, which is a school record for touchdown receptions in a single season.
All of that production led to a splattering of a team North Shore barely survived against in the regular season. The Mustangs will be favored against Austin Westlake next week, who should already be well prepared, but that kind of performance puts defending champions Duncanville (or North Crowley) on notice.
Atascocita shouldn’t go without notice here. Another season ended by North Shore in the regional finals isn’t what they wanted as a team, but the Eagles still had an incredible year.
Quarterback Cardae Mack finished 10-of-19 passing for 201 yards, and he ran for 98 yards and two touchdowns as well. Star back Tory Blaylock finished with 38 rushing yards, 48 receiving yards and an 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in his swan song as an Eagle.
Now, Atascocita will reflect on what was a great season and regroup to hopefuly find a way to top North Shore next season. Meanwhile, the Mustangs will prepare for two rounds of potential rematches. Westlake is good, but North Shore is still the favorite. If the last several years has proven anything, expect Duncanville-North Shore round VI.
Angleton avenges loss to La Porte
The rematch between Angleton and La Porte was one of the most evenly balanced games in the state last weekend. La Porte won the regular season district matchup between these teams 35-28, but Angleton got revenge with a 24-21 win to capture the Region III Championship.
This game was a defensive slugfest, with Angleton totaling under 300 yards of offense. Bryce Duron finished 10-of-21 for 103 yards and a touchdown. JaMarcus Shockley ran 22 times for 126 yards and a touchdown. Angleton scored only two touchdowns, but still got to 24 points with a two-point conversion from Anthony Thomas and three field goals, including the go-ahead score with 6:26 left in the game.
After an onside kick didn’t pay off for the Wildcats, cornerback Maurice Hightower came up with a big interception to give the ball back to the Wildcat offense. One more defensive stop sealed the win and a state semifinal date with Smithson Valley.
The Angleton defense really sealed this win not just with those two key stops, but with shutdown defense all night. Angleton was just under 300 total yards – nothing to write home about – but the Wildcats defense held La Porte under 200 yards. Freshman standout Sean Simon gained just 61 yards and a touchdown on his 24 carries; that’s 2.5 yards-per-carry. La Porte finished with just 54 passing yards, though that isn’t abnormal as a team that mostly runs the ball. The shocking part was the Bulldogs gaining just 137 yards on 49 carries.
La Porte has plenty of talent coming back to make another run next season, including Simon and junior quarterback Aiden Saenz. Angleton will face a Smithson Valley team that played for a state championship last season, so it won’t be an easy task. But, if the Wildcats defense can step up big again, Angleton could be playing for a state championship, not an expectation many had at the start of the season.
Randle survives in rematch with Iowa Colony
While Angleton avenged its regular season loss to advance to the state semifinals, Iowa Colony did not. But, the Pioneers did make it a much closer game than the district game was. Randle won that game 30-10 in the regular season, but needed overtime to put away Iowa Colony 21-14 in the regional finals.
Like the Angleton-La Porte game, there wasn’t a lot of offense in this one, and it featured a running back that did less than his usual output. Landen Williams-Callis is one of the best running backs in America, but Iowa Colony bottled him up better than he has been in his two-year high school career so far. Williams-Callis ran 28 times for 131 yards and no touchdowns, averaging just 4.6 yards-per-carry. That isn’t a terrible day for some backs, but Williams-Callis isn’t just some back.
The quarterbacks for Randle helped pick up the slack. Tyler Skrabanek finished 7-of-12 passing for 113 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Keilan Sweeny also got some snaps at quarterback, and he completed 9-of-11 passes for 67 yards and a touchdown. Sweeny also added 44 rushing yards and two touchdowns, and he caught Skrabanek’s lone touchdown pass as well. It’s not often you see a player pass for a touchdown, run for a touchdown and catch a touchdown.
Randle advances to face Boerne in the state semifinals. Boerne played for a state championship in 2022, Randle’s first football season in school history. Randle is undefeated while Boerne has losses to San Antonio Pieper, San Antonio East Central and Alamo Heights, each by one score. One look at the schedule tells me Boerne scores a lot of points, but gives up plenty of points as well. This one could be a track meet, and a track meet with Landen Williams-Callis probably isn’t a good idea.
Player of the Week
My player-of-the-week has been long overdue, but for a reason.
I don’t typically like handing out player-of-the-week awards to anyone who plays for North Shore during the regular season because I don’t like doubling up on teams who win a POTW award. There are too many good players and good teams in this area to do that.
But I know North Shore will make a deep playoff run every year without fail, so a lot of great Mustang POTW-worthy performances go to waste because I save it for this time of year. Well this year, it paid off.
Kaleb Bailey turned in his best performance of the season to propel his team to the state semifinals – and emphatically past a great Atascocita squad the Mustangs barely beat in the regular season.
I don’t want to rehash the whole first half of this blog, but let’s give it up for that stat line one more time: 16-of-19 passing for 202 yards, two touchdowns and an INT; 10 rushes for 261 yards and two touchdowns. That’s 463 yards and four touchdowns on 29 attempts.
Kaleb Bailey is my player-of-the-week!
What to Watch for
There are seven teams left vying for a championship with two games left to get there. I’ll be providing live updates and photos for the Angleton and Summer Creek games on Saturday in Waco. Here are the six games featuring Houston-area teams this weekend.
Thursday Night:
Edna (14-0) vs. Columbus (13-1)
Tidehaven (12-2) vs. Woodville (12-2)
Friday Night:
Richmond Randle (14-0) vs. Boerne (11-3)
Saturday:
Summer Creek (12-2) vs. Austin Vandegrift (13-1)
Angleton (13-1) vs. Smithson Valley (12-2)