Published: November 10, 2007 03:37 am      

Zebras give Tigers the boot

GRANDVIEW — The Grandview Zebras defeated Hico 47-29 to claim the District 11-2A championship Friday night at Zebra Stadium.

Justin Burdick was the special teams and defensive standout for the Zebras, returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown and intercepting two passes on the night.

“We’ve scored on the first series every game in district,” Grandview head coach Aubrey Sims said. “I like getting the ball, trying to score right there and get the lead. Against Itasca we ran back the opening kickoff and ran back another one tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve known that to happen.”

Nic Morphew ran back the opening kickoff against Itasca in a 26-6 road win Oct. 19.

Grandview (8-2, 5-0 in District 11-2A) will face Caddo Mills (10-0), the District 12-2A champion, in the opening round of the Class 2A Division I playoffs.

The contest is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday in Lancaster.

“We had to make some great plays,” Sims said. “We got some big turnovers and made some big plays on special teams. We can’t give up 29 points because Caddo Mills is going to come at us.

“We’ve got to definitely get better this week and work on some technical stuff.”

Grandview got on the scoreboard quickly, as Burdick caught the ball at his own 14 and raced 86 yards for a touchdown that gave Grandview the early 7-0 lead.

After Morphew intercepted a Westin Williams pass on the Tigers’ first possession, the Zebras went back to work at the Hico 22.

Jerod Cochran found the end zone on a 14-yard run on a fourth and two play to make it 14-0 with 8:13 left in the first quarter.

The Zebras’ defense then came up with another big play as Zac Torres recovered a Hico fumble, giving Grandview’s offense the ball at the Zebra 43.

The Tigers forced Grandview to punt and the Tigers put the ball in the end zone on a 2-yard pass from Williams to Cade Sklar, cutting the lead to 14-7.

The Zebras started their next drive at their own 41 and after a 19-yard run by Cameron Cochran, Michael Pugh carried the ball up the middle for a 40-yard touchdown.

At that point, Grandview held a 21-7 advantage with a minute left in the first quarter.

Burdick came up with another big play on the first play of the second quarter, intercepting a Williams pass deep in Zebra territory.

Cameron Cochran capped the six-play drive with a 54-yard touchdown run, putting the Zebras head 27-7 with 9:53 to play in the half.

Once again, the Zebras’ defense stifled the Tigers’ passing attack as Justin Scharnhorst returned an interception 48 yards for another touchdown, stretching the lead to 34-7 with 7:48 remaining in the second quarter.

Hico finally found a solution to the Zebra defense, putting together a 10-play, 56-yard scoring drive, capped by a 2-yard run by Jordan Turner with 19 seconds left in the half, cutting the lead to 34-13.

Rather than settle for a 21-point lead at the break, quarterback Reid Golson dropped back and completed a 54-yard pass to Jace Lantroop with the clock winding down.

Lantroop appeared to get out of bounds, which would have given the Zebras at least one more play, but he was ruled down in the field of play and time ran out in the half.

Grandview committed 11 penalties for 115 yards against Hico, something that the coaching staff is going to work on correcting before the playoffs.

“The focus is great, the intensity is great, but it’s got to be controlled,” Sims said. “You can’t just completely lose control. Our kids were fired up tonight and they were getting after it, but you’ve got to do that under some control.”

Hico drove down the field to open the second half, but the Zebras forced another miscue, as Jerod Cochran returned a fumble 73 yards for a score that made it 41-13.

Midway through the third quarter, Williams scored on a 19-yard run to close the gap to 41-21 after a two-point conversion.

Grandview’s final touchdown came when Golson ran for 22 yards before fumbling into the end zone where Lantroop fell on the ball with 6:25 left in the game.

Turner closed the scoring for Hico on a 5-yard run with 2:47 showing on the clock.

“Our execution has got to get better,” Sims said. “We got lackadaisical and let up a little bit. We just didn’t execute offensively or defensively there at the end. We’ll focus on that this week in practice.”

Cameron Cochran finished with 11 carries for 121 yards on the ground as the Zebras rolled up 279 rushing yards on 33 attempts.

Golson completed 3-of-9 passes for 73 yards, the big play coming on the 54-yard pass to Lantroop that ended the half.