Cleburne QB Landry Shields leads Yellow Jackets to high-scoring win over Weatherford

Imagine the quintessential Rocky scene where no boxer has their guard up and haymakers are being thrown left and right, landing with immaculate precision.

That was essentially the scene Friday night at Yellow Jacket Stadium between Cleburne and Weatherford, and both teams traded blow for blow all night long, but ending with Cleburne scoring the final 13 points to win 54-48 in the Star-Telegram Week 3 fan game of the week.

Junior quarterback Landry Shields led the charge for Cleburne (2-1) with five total touchdowns – three passing and two rushing – including the final two scores in the fourth quarter after Weatherford (1-2) held a 48-41 lead.

The game started well enough for Weatherford with a touchdown on its opening drive and forcing Cleburne into a three-and-out on its first possession.

But as the case all night, neither team could extend a lead to more than two scores no matter how hard it tried. Penalties and turnovers plagued both teams in a closely-contested matchup.

In the first quarter, looking for a two-touchdown lead, Cleburne made a stop with a Keon Long interception in the end zone. That quick change of momentum would propel Cleburne to march 80 yards down the field for the score and the first of six ties.

But every time it seemed like Cleburne scored, Weatherford would have its own counter and score right back. In fact, the teams traded seven touchdowns in the second quarter alone, going from a low-scoring game to a shootout in the matter of 12 minutes.

Ryan Clark led the Weatherford attack with four touchdowns of his own, including a 53-yard heave to Melvin Polk with 23 seconds left in the first half to give Weatherford a 34-28 lead.

That blow-for-blow energy continued in the third quarter as the teams traded three more scores. However, two missed PATs by Weatherford to Cleburne’s one was the difference maker after 36 minutes, giving Cleburne its first lead of the night.

The fourth quarter started with Weatherford marching down the field and being finished off with a 7-yard TD run by Clark, his third of the game.

On Cleburne’s ensuing possession, Cleburne took the ball right down the field in big chunks, capped by a 1-yard TD run by Shields to tie the game at 48.

Cleburne then forced Weatherford to punt for the first time in the game, and then proceeded to march right down the field on the back of five straight runs by freshman running back Eli Martinez, which chewed up the majority of the clock remaining in the quarter.

On the sixth play, though, Cleburne called a play action leading with a fake hand-off to Martinez and Shields found a wide-open Tyler Forsythe for the second time in the game to give Cleburne just its second lead with 23 seconds left.

After a decent kickoff return, Weatherford’s Clark was unable to connect on either of his two throws, allowing Cleburne to escape with the high-scoring win.

This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 10:37 PM.