San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Mules hold on vs. Tigers to stay unbeaten
Style points for Alamo Heights waned as the Mules played Floresville on Friday night at Orem Stadium.
A seemingly comfortable lead turned into a nailbiter as the Mules held on for a 36-29 win in their District 15-5A Division II opener.
Alamo Heights led 36-14 midway through the third quarter before containing Braeden Fuller, the Tigers’ playmaking senior quarterback, just enough to record the hard-fought victory.
Fuller, one of the area’s top dual-threat quarterbacks, escaped pressure, connecting for scoring passes to Preston Freeman (30 yards) in the third quarter and Dareion Murphy (43 yards) with 5:50 left in the fourth to pull to within one touchdown.
The Mules ran out the rest of the clock to secure the victory.
“A win is a win, and in this district, every one of them is tough, and they all count as one,” Alamo Heights coach Ron Rittimann said. “And against a really good team, that one could end up being big.”
Alamo Heights, which entered as the top team in the ExpressNews sub-6A rankings, improved to 6-0 overall. Eighth-ranked Floresville fell to 5-1.
Junior receiver Rett Andersen caught a 55-yard touchdown pass at the 7:41 mark of the third quarter that put the Mules in front 3614.
Alamo Heights missed a chance to add to its lead on its next possession when Brandon Castillo picked off James Sobey in the end zone. Castillo’s teammate, Ashton Garza, picked off Sobey in the end zone in the first half.
Those interceptions kept the Tigers in the game.
Fuller eluded several Mules defenders to connect with Freeman for 30 yards to make it 36-22 following a two-point conversion pass with 8:14 in the third quarter.
Fuller’s 43-yarder to Murphy, the Tigers’ running back, followed a similar script with an apparent sack turning into a score. “There’s no question they have
a great offense,” Mules senior
linebacker Roan Erwin said. “They’ve got a great running back, a great quarterback, great receivers. They’re a great team, and they did start to come back on us in the second half. It was a little bit embarrassing. We should have kept our foot on the gas, and we’ll work on that. No question, no one’s going to do that on us again.”
Until that point, the Mules had done a solid job of containing Fuller, who entered averaging 111.8 rushing yards per game, while Murphy carried a 137.6 average.
Fuller finished with 76 yards on 18 carries, and Murphy had 65 on 10 attempts.
“It’s so hard to slow those guys down,” Rittimann said. “But we got just enough stops to win the game. Offensively, we scored just enough. We had a couple of turnovers in the red zone that really hurt us, and we could have had a few more.”
Andersen also had touchdown catches of 43 and 10 yards that helped the Mules build a 22-0 lead early int the second quarter.
Erwin gave Alamo Heights a 29-7 lead in the final minute of the second quarter when he scooped up the ball following a high snap over the Floresville punter for a 13-yard score.
“It was a heads-up play, a scoop-and-score,” Erwin said of his first career touchdown. “It was easy. Anyone else could have done it. … What was going through my mind was that I had to get back on (the) PAT (team), and I was pretty tired. It was a great feeling, though.”