Arlington Martin rallies from 18 down against Midland Legacy in showdown of state powers

It’s not often that Arlington Martin gets pushed around on the football field like it did on Friday night.

At least in the first half.

But Martin, No. 12 in the Class 6A state rankings, rallied from 18 points down at intermission to subdue No. 21 Midland Legacy, 43-37 in a non-district game at Choctaw Stadium.

Martin (2-1) couldn’t keep pace early with gaffes on its end and the running of Makhilyn Young behind the Rebels’ big offensive line. Young scored three touchdowns in the second quarter on runs of 15, 14 and 11 yards, the latter giving Legacy a 31-13 lead with 1:19 left in the second quarter.

“They whipped us up front,” said Martin coach Bob Wager. “They pushed us around the whole first 24 minutes. They’re a good football team and some of the punishment that they dealt out to us in the first half was exactly that.”

Young had 29 carries in the first half for 207 yards, but the Warriors woke up at halftime. Stanford commit Ernest Cooper, IV (No. 16 in the Star-Telegram Top 100 players) and the rest of the Martin defense held Young to 59 yards on 19 carries in the second half and the Rebels to six first downs after Legacy (2-1) picked up 21 first downs before halftime.

“As a defense we weren’t really playing like ourselves and it really took a wake up call,” said Cooper. “It’s good that we finally got punched in the mouth because I would rather it happen now than later on down the line. We really needed this game.”

Martin came out on fire to open the second half. Zaire Barrow returned the second half kickoff 64 yards down to the Legacy 18 and two penalties on the play put the ball at the Rebels’ 4.

Three plays later 5-star running back/defensive back Javien Toviano (No. 8 in the Top 100) ran it in from three yards out and added a two-point conversion run to close the gap to 31-21 with 11:06 left in the third quarter.

Following a three-and-out by the Rebels, Martin quarterback Cydd Ford (No. 92 in the Top 100) and running back Sergio Snider led the Warriors on a 14-play, 84-yard drive capped by a 1-yard plunge by Toviano to trim the lead to 31-28.

“Coach gave us a good halftime speech and we just came out and knew that we were a better team,” said Snider, who led Martin with 66 rushing yards on 11 carries. “We came back out and played Martin ball.”

Ford had a nice night completing 22 of 31 passes for 243 yards for the Warriors. Trey Cochran caught eight passes for 102 yards and Barrow had seven receptions for 82 yards for Martin.

Things looked bleak for Martin after a muffed punt was recovered by Legacy’s Logan Kinne at the Warriors 29. Young carried 10 straight times and finally scored on a 2-yard run to give the Rebels a 37-28 lead with 9:20 left in the game.

But a 14-yard swing pass from Ford to Snider on Martin’s next possession cut the lead to 37-35. Then a whiffed punt attempt by Legacy gave the Warriors the ball at the Rebels’ 13 with 4:54 left.

Three plays later, Snider carried it in from 16 yards out and Martin took its first lead since the first quarter, 43-37.

Legacy had one more chance, but lost the ball on downs at its own 23 with 1:17 left allowing Martin to run out the clock.

“I think that first and foremost that our staff did a great job of adjusting,” said Wager. “We decided that we wanted to get into a fist fight, which we didn’t really like much in the first half, and we just got physical.”

Martin opened the scoring after forcing a Legacy punt to start the game. Snider returned the kick to the Rebels’ 44 and nine plays later, he ran it in from six yards out to give the Warriors a 7-0 lead with 6:44 left in the first quarter.

A 42-yard bomb from Legacy quarterback Marcos Davila to Chris Brazzell was followed by a kickoff that was misplayed by Martin and recovered by the Rebels’ John Washington. The miscue led to a 26-yard field goal by Gunner Meade that made it 10-7.

Following a Martin punt, Young scored on his 15-yard run, but that was matched on Barrow’s 15-yard score that cut the Legacy lead to 17-13 with 8:47 left before halftime.

“They’re a West Texas team, they’re big and they’ve got a lot of tradition over there,” said Cooper. “They’re gonna want to run the ball and we kind of weren’t prepared for it, but as the game went on we were able to light a fire under our butts and get back into it.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 11:10 PM.