Stidhams Big Day Leads Stephenville over Amarillo
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Senior Analyst, TheOldCoach.com
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SNYDER - In a game that featured 106 total points and 1,168 total yards, Stephenville junior quarterback Jarrett Stidham stood tallest as he led Stephenville (4-1) to a 64-42 win over Amarillo (2-3) at Tiger Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Stidham paced the Yellow Jackets attack throwing for 344 yards and four touchdowns, along with leading SHS on the ground with 132 yards and a touchdown.
Stephenville two way standout Mookie Carlile a UTEP verbal commitment, had a solid all around game as well, as he recovered a muffed Amarillo punt, picked off a pass as Amarillo was driving for a fourth quarter score and he hauled in two passes for 61 yards and a touchdown. Amarillo's offense was plenty good as well as the Sandies rolled up 551 yards of offense led by senior running back Deon Lynch who ran for 140 yards and four touchdowns. Senior quarterback Isaac Garcia was very efficient in the passing game with 212 yards passing on just thirteen completions.
"A win is a win weather it's 3-0 or a high scoring game like today, it wasn't always real pretty but I'm proud of our kids because they kept battling today. We are a team and any time one side of the ball struggles a little bit, the other side has to have their back and today we did" said Stephenville head coach Joe Gillespie after the game.
In what was otherwise an evenly played game, Stephenville capitalized on two key special teams miscues by Amarillo which proved to be the difference. After the game's first series, Stephenville's Kobe Beavers broke through and blocked an Amarillo punt. The loose ball was scooped up by Tyler Isham who scampered 26 yards for the game's first score and a 6-0 SHS lead. Late in the second quarter with Stephenville clinging to a 24-21 lead after the first of Luis Luna's three short touchdown runs, Amarillo muffed the ensuing kickoff and Logan Levisay pounced on the loose ball. One play later, Stidham hooked up with Carlile for a 33 yard touchdown pass to give Stephenville some breathing room at 31-21. Amarillo would answer back scoring on fourth and goal on a one yard run by Lynch with just 1.8 seconds remaining in the half to cut the Stephenville lead to 31-28 at the half.
After taking the opening kickoff of the second half and scoring Stephenville would recover an Amarillo muffed punt which led to a one yard touchdown run by Stidham to make it 45-28. Amarillo would never get the game closer than ten points for the remainder of the afternoon.
"The turnovers hurt us obviously, but you've got to give Stephenville credit because they had a lot to do with it, you just can't give a great team like that free chances because they'll charge you for it" said Amarillo High head coach Mel Maxfield. "They are a great program with great schemes, well coached and they play hard. We told the kids we are 0-0 now and we can't let today's game sink us. I was very pleased with the way we continuously battled back all afternoon, our offense executed well in both the running game and passing game. I think our turnovers are correctable, we've got coachable kids and our coaches work hard so I'm fully confident we'll bounce back."