Northwest football team rallies past Fossil Ridge

By Jarret Johnson

jmjohnson@star-telegram.com

KELLER -- The Justin Northwest Texans pushed their record to 4-1 overall for the first time since 2006 with a 31-10 victory over Keller Fossil Ridge on Thursday night at Keller ISD Athletic Center.

After fumbling the ball away on three of their first four possessions and digging a 10-0 hole, the Texans rattled off the last 31 points, including 21 in the second half, to move to 2-0 in District 4-5A.

"You can't turn the football over and expect to win the football game," Northwest coach Bill Patterson said. "But we hung in, did a lot of good things and it was a huge win for us."

Northwest's Draze Lawliss threw for 144 yards and two touchdowns, both to sophomore Emmanuel Moore, who caught six passes for 74 yards. Senior Dylan Stubbe totaled 109 yards from scrimmage, scoring on runs of 13 and 12 yards in the second half to seal the victory.

"We believe in our team all the way," Moore said. "We fought and stuck to our game plan. We knew we could do it, it was just mental breakdowns early in the game."

The Texans shut out the Panthers (1-4, 1-1) in the second half and allowed just 32 rushing yards on 22 carries on the night.

Tyler Wine, Joe Gonzalez, Carter James and Lonnie McKinnis each sacked Fossil Ridge quarterback Jacob Gnacinski once. They harassed him into three interceptions.

Junior defensive back Sam Jennings picked off Gnacinski twice. Reggie McDaniel grabbed an interception late in the first half, which set up the Texans' first touchdown and a 10-10 tie at the break.

"We knew they were going to throw the ball, we just had to stay at them and that's what we did all night," Jennings said.

Jarret Johnson, 817-390-7760

Twitter: @JohnsonJarret

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