Tigers rout reigning champs
Bennett returns opening kickoff for TD; defense stifles Eagles
Klein Collins coach Drew Svoboda was looking for a game to fill his off week after losing two games to Hurricane Harvey, so he put out a call to Atascocita, the reigning Class 6A Division I Region III champion.
Eagles coach Craig Stump probably wishes he hadn’t responded.
A.J. Bennett returned the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown to jump-start a one-sided first half, and the Tigers rolled to a 41-0 victory and impressive 2-0 start Thursday night at Klein Memorial Stadium.
“I wasn’t real fired up to play him, either,” Svoboda joked. “We were both 13-2 (last season), and I think we both felt the same way — ‘You know what, we didn’t have a whole lot of people answer our emails, so let’s play each other,’ and we’ve got a good history.
“They’ve got a quality football team, and it was what we needed going into district.”
Collins opened the season with a big win over a loaded Lamar team.
Atascocita, which ousted North Shore and Lamar from the playoffs last year, dropped to 1-1 with a Week 3 win over Klein Oak.
Seven straight punts
The Eagles are rebuilding after quarterback Daveon Boyd left for Blinn College, and they struggled to find any success Thursday, punting on their first seven possessions after spotting the Tigers a 7-0 lead.
Five of those possessions were three-and-outs.
The next two drives ended in turnovers — a 45yard pick-six by defensive back Ke’Vric Wiggins off a deflected pass from sophomore quarterback Darius Edmonds with 46 seconds left, and a fumble to end the first half.
Collins took a 27-0 lead into the break.
After Bennett’s long kick-return score, the Tigers took advantage of short fields to score on two quickstrike drives.
They went up 13-0 less than four minutes in on a three-play drive capped by Isaiah Spiller’s 43-yard touchdown run and then pushed the lead to 20-0 in the second quarter on a oneplay scoring drive.
Quarterback Carter Rhyne found Alex Brown, who held on for a 39-yard touchdown.
“We’ve still got a lot of room to work on execution, but we capitalized on opportunities, which was huge,” Svoboda said. “We had a lot of short fields.”
Jack Roe was Atascocita’s starting quarterback last week, but Stump went with the sophomore Thursday night. It didn’t go well.
The Eagles had only 18 total yards and one first down at halftime, including minus-3 yards on 14 rushes.
Garrow in the second
Ethan Garrow started the second half, but Atascocita didn’t fare any better.
Collins forced a punt to start the third, then the snap sailed over punter Tristan Heaton’s head, and all he could do was fall on the ball at the Eagles’ 9-yard line, setting up another quick Collins score.
“Our defense played lights out,” Svoboda said.
On the second play, Spiller scored on a 6-yard run for a 34-0 advantage.
The Tigers iced the game with their first sustained touchdown drive in the third quarter, going 63 yards on eight plays and scoring on a perfectly placed 26yard fade pass from Rhyne to Jackson Loftin to make it 41-0.
Klein Collins improved to 2-2 all-time against the Eagles. It won the first showdown 45-17 in district play, and then Atascocita won the next two meetings — 31-28 in district in 2013 and and 32-27 in the first round of the 6A Division I Region II playoffs two years ago.
The Tigers now turn their attention to Memorial in their 15-6A opener next Thursday, while the Eagles will open district play against Kingwood in the 21-6A opener for those two teams.