Stephenville hammers Burnet with unstoppable offense

By Art Stricklin

Special to the Star-Telegram

WACO -- Stephenville put on a first-half offensive display that crushed Burnet 56-27 in a Class 3A Division I bi-district contest Friday at Waco ISD Stadium.

Burnet came out aggressive, recovering an onside kick on the opening kickoff, but Stephenville (9-1) failed at little else. The Yellow Jackets had seven first-half touchdowns, with senior quarterback Tyler Jones throwing for five and running for another before halftime.

Stephenville advanced to next week's area round against Kennedale (9-2) at 2 p.m. Friday at Mineral Wells.

Current Baylor coach Art Briles won two state titles at Stephenville in the 1990s with a spread, no-huddle offense, and his former team ran it to perfection with six touchdowns by late in the second quarter. Burnet (5-6) had one first down at the time.

Stephenville receiver Brice Gunter did much of the early damage, catching Jones TD passes from 18 and 54 yards. He had eight catches for 172 yards at halftime.

Jones had 389 yards passing, much of it in the first half. Jones found Jarrett Stidham (18 yards), Brock Morrison (35) and Alex Sanchez (46) for scores, and Whitt Westbrook had a 35-yard TD run.

Preston Brown also returned a kickoff 86 yards in the third quarter for another Stephenville score.

Burnet scored on two 1-yard runs by Cameron Langley and an 11-yard pass from quarterback Derek Kiser to Langley.

The running back also closed the scoring by outracing Stephenville's secondary after he took a short pass from Kiser and then went 82 yards for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

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