Thursday night’s District 3-5A Division I opener against Lubbock Monterey was exactly the response to the wake-up call issued to the Amarillo High Sandies six days earlier.
When it really counted, the Sandies were up to the test Monterey brought to Dick Bivins Stadium. Amarillo High resembled the offensive unit which opened the season with three straight wins over Class 6A schools, as the Sandies overcame injuries to cruise to a 37-21 victory and be the first team in the win column in district.
After last week’s surprising 35-14 loss to crosstown rival Palo Duro, the Sandies (4-1, 1-0 in district) had a short week to lick their wounds before playing a game which really counted. While it wasn’t a terribly artistic contest, the Sandies emerged with the W, and that was all that mattered.
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“Last week obviously was disappointing and this week is a great feeling,” Amarillo High coach Chad Dunnam said. “The outhouse and the penthouse sit side-by-side and it’s an easy transition from one to the other. We were on top of the world for three weeks then we were down in the dumps and we came back. Our kids were resilient and bounced back and I’m really proud of their performance tonight.”
Monterey (2-3, 0-1) provided the challenge the Sandies needed and the Plainsmen also showed that they could be force to deal with over the final five district games.
It wasn’t a cleanly played game by any standard, as there were nine 15-yard penalties called, eight of them in the first half. That last one of the half led indirectly to Amarillo High’s scoring drive to close the half as the Sandies led 23-7 going into intermission.
Despite missing hobbled wide receivers Oliver Parsons and Austin Sluder in the starting lineup, the Sandies started the game in stride offensively and took advantage of a pair of short fields for two touchdowns. They made quick work of Monterey after taking the opening kickoff, as Jett Lopez hit Tate Blackwell for a 20-yard scoring pass to give the Sandies a 7-0 lead only 83 seconds into the game.
Blackwell also scored on a run, a 15-yard reverse which gave the Sandies their halftime margin.
“We have such a great connection as receivers and we just know that we have guys who can step up and play a role no matter what,” Blackwell said. “Oliver’s an amazing receiver and Austin’s really good but we’ve got other guys. We just put (the reverse) in this week and we knew it was going to happen. It depends on the defense, but it could be a possibility (to run it again) this season.”
Amarillo High compensated for the loss of their receivers by emphasizing the running game, as the Sandies ran for 252 yards.
“We rely on Jude and Jett and also put it on our offensive line,” Dunnam said. “I think they did a great job tonight of just taking the pressure off some of those receivers and allowing Jett some time so out receivers could get open. I’m really proud of them.”
Monterey tied the game 7-7 late in the first quarter on a 1-yard run by Deuce Moore. That was the only time the Plainsmen reached the end zone, and while they didn’t punt the first half, Amarillo High twice stopped them on downs and they made two huge miscues.
It only took 74 seconds for the Sandies to respond to Monterey’s score, as Jude Dunavin scored on a 20-yard run to make it 14-7 with 29 seconds left in the first quarter.
Both offenses sputtered a bit in the second quarter, and the Plainsmen gave up two points when lined up in punt formation in their own end zone. A bad snap on a punt sailed out of t he end zone to give Amarillo High a safety and a 16-7 lead.
Monterey looked primed to cut into the lead shortly after that when Jonah Reed hit Cam Taylor for a 52-yard gain down to the Amarillo High 5-yard line. After the play, though, Taylor was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike concuct which pushed the Plainsmen back to the AHS 20.
On the next play, Creed Cavalier intercepted Reed at the 4 and killed the Monterey drive. That seemed to inspire the Amarillo High offense, as the Sandies marched to a touchdown on Blackwell’s run with 44 seconds left in the half.
“That was a big turning point in the game,” said first-year Monterey head coach Jason Sims. “It was basically a 14-point swing. Even past that you’ve got to tip your hat to Amarillo because they did a good job of stopping our run game. It made us one-dimensional.”
While Reed had a respectable game by completing 17-of-29 passes for 250 yards, the Plainsmen managed only 15 yards rushing, although the bad snap on the punt and a sack contributed to the negative yardage.
With Parsons out and Sluder making only a cameo appearance (he had one catch for two yards), that put more of an emphasis on Amarillo High’s running game. That’s where Dunavin came in, particularly in the second half as the Sandies had the lead.
Dunavin ran for 150 yards on 23 carries, with 83 of those coming in the second half, as Amarillo High went mainly to the ground for two scoring drives.
“We’ve really been focusing on running plays,” Dunavin said. “Granted, we’ve got the depth at wide receiver but we felt like we could rely heavily on the running game. That was the goal to be 1-0 in district after that loss last week. That’s all we really cared about.”
Monterey never got closer than the halftime margin, as the teams traded touchdowns in the second half.
Although he finished with three scoring passes, Lopez had otherwise fairly ordinary passing numbers, as he completed 12-of-21 passes for 135 yards and one interception. That came in the fourth quarter near midfield when KJ Russell picked off Lopez, but the Sandies stopped the Plainsmen on downs and marched down the field for a 3-yarde scoring pass from Lopez to Caden Virden to make it 37-14 and remove just about all doubt.
Taylor had a huge game for Monterey with six catches for 152 yards. He torched the Sandies for a 54-yard scoring pass from Reed with 3:10 left in the game which gave the Plainsmen a flicker of hope, but they never got the ball back.
“We need to learn from some of those things that happened tonight and get that fixed,” Sims said. “Coming into the night we’d done a really good job of running the ball to complement that passing game, we just didn’t do it tonight.”
