Atlanta eliminated from playoffs
LONGVIEW, Texas—R.J. Carr hadn’t played since Sept. 14.
Out with an ankle injury, the junior running back was able to rejoin the Malakoff Tigers for the Class 3A, Division I Region II championship at Pine Tree’s Pirate Stadium on Saturday.
Carr returned in a big way, rushing for 180 yards on 10 carries to lead the Tigers to a 37-22 win over Atlanta on Saturday.
“I haven’t been able to be out there in a while, so it felt good to run the ball again,” Carr said.
Run the ball, he did. Carr had runs of 39, 44, 28, 27 and 20 yards—all in the first half as he rushed for 166 yards in the first 24 minutes of action.
But Carr wasn’t the only Tiger the Rabbits had to deal with on Saturday. Malakoff had three 100-yard rushers as junior running back Keevie Rose carried the ball 23 times for 124 yards, and sophomore quarterback Darion Peace added 102 yards on 11 attempts.
“We have to figure out how to get them all on the field and get them the ball in some kind of way,” Malakoff head coach Jamie Driskell said.
“The gameplan was to pound it, and that’s what we did,” Peace said. “R.J. coming back was a big help.”
Peace put Malakoff on the board first with an 8-yard touchdown run with 8:13 left in the opening quarter. The score was set up by Caleb Adams, who blocked an Atlanta punt attempt to give the Tigers the ball at the Atlanta 12-yard line.
On the ensuing possession, Malakoff’s Nathan Jones picked off Atlanta’s Andrew Samples. Carr then busted free for his 39-yard run to set up a 6-yard touchdown run by Rose to make the score 14-0 about midway through the first quarter.
Atlanta answered with a 13-play drive, but the Rabbits were stopped on fourth down.
On the first play of the second quarter, Carr—who
rushed for 305 yards and five touchdowns in the season-opening win over Teague before getting injured in the second game—went 44 yards to the end zone to make the score 21-0.
Atlanta needed just a minute to answer as Caleb Hamilton scored from 8 yards out. The extra point was no good to put the score at 21-6.
Rose scored on a 15-yard run to make it 28-6, and Hector Romero connected on a 20-yard field goal just before halftime to give the Tigers a 31-6 advantage at the break.
A 7-yard touchdown run by Carr with 5:53 left in the third quarter made the score 37-6, and it looked like the Tigers were well on their way to the state semifinals.
But Atlanta didn’t go down without a fight.
Rice commit Jawan King broke loose for a 57-yard run, and he finished the drive with a 2-yard run. The extra point was blocked, but the Rabbits picked up the ball and took it into the end zone for two points.
The Rabbits forced a punt, and Dra Nelson scored on the next play with a 48-yard touchdown run to cut the score to 37-22 with 47 seconds left in the third quarter after King’s two-point conversion.
King finished with 115 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries.
Malakoff then ran more than five minutes off the clock, and Atlanta followed with a 13-play drive that ended by getting stopped on fourth down, which allowed Malakoff to run out the clock with one final first down.
A week after rushing for 148 yards in a 35-7 win over Gladewater, the Tigers finished with 416 yards on the ground to advance to the state semifinals for the second time in three seasons.
“I’m just so proud of these kids,” Driskell said. “Atlanta showed a lot of heart coming back, but we held them off. It wasn’t the prettiest win, but we think it was beautiful.”
“This is big for us, because our team is mostly sophomores and juniors, but we want our seniors to get a state ring,” Peace said.
Malakoff (11-2) will face Brock (13-1) in the state semifinals at 4 p.m. Friday at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco.