Mansfield opens District 11-6A play with win over cross-town rival Mansfield Legacy
Mansfield High has always seemed to be the older, bigger brother in the football series with Mansfield Legacy.
The Tigers and Broncos had only played seven times since Legacy opened in 2007, but Mansfield has beaten Legacy in six of the seven meetings.
Make that seven of eight.
Legacy pulled to within one score early in the third quarter, but running back James Johnson and quarterback Sergio Kennedy helped the Tigers run away with a 37-16 win in the District 11-6A opener for both schools on Friday night at Newsom Stadium.
The older, bigger brother also scheduled Legacy (2-2 overall, 0-1 in district) as their Homecoming opponent, but the Broncos got a 2-yard touchdown run from Marcus Hayes with 24 seconds left before halftime.
Legacy then added a 33-yard field goal from Kade Matthews to open the scoring in the third quarter to cut the lead to 16-9.
But Johnson scored on a 9-yard run less than two minutes later and Kennedy added a 32-yard TD run with 10:28 left in the game to up the lead to 30-9.
“We’ve been kind of the bully to Legacy,” said Johnson, who finished with 202 rushing yards on 17 carries. “I think that they’re a great match up for us though. It’s fun to play against them because they’re very competitive, but we’re just going to end up on top. We want to play harder.”
Legacy had trouble moving the ball against the Mansfield defense, especially early. The Tigers forced punts the first four times the Broncos had the ball.
“It was a good team win,” said Mansfield safety Brenden Jordan, who’s No. 9 in the Star-Telegram Top 100. “We worked really hard in practice all week and came together and got the win.”
Jordan is a 4-star Texas Tech commit and ranks as the 19th best senior safety in the country and 45th best player in Texas, according to 247Sports.
Defensive end Kaleb James, No. 20 in the S-T Top 100 and an Arkansas commit, helped the Tigers hold Legacy to 205 yards of total offense with 79 coming on the ground on 36 carries.
While the Broncos were struggling on offense, Mansfield was building a 16-0 lead.
Johnson opened the scoring for Mansfield (4-0, 1-0) with a 63-yard run late in the first quarter. Tigers’ kicker Jacob Hand upped the lead to 10-0 with a 33-yard field goal on Mansfield’s next series.
Following another Legacy punt, Kennedy led the Tigers on a 10-play, 61-yard march that culminated in a 2-yard scoring run on a bootleg by the senior.
“We stuck to our game plan with a lot of power stuff,” said Kennedy, who rushed for 74 yards on 10 carries with two TDs (2 and 32) and threw for 152 more yards competing 12 of 19 passes. “It really goes up to the coaches and offensive coordinator because they see a lot of things and our offensive linemen making it happen.”
The Mansfield offensive line of senior Emmanuel Ajibike and juniors Connor Hardin, Grant Teer, Isaac Howard, and Joseph Rivera helped the Tigers roll up 431 yards of total offense with 279 coming on the ground on 31 carries.
A fumbled punt by Mansfield was recovered by Legacy’s Cameron Horton-Myrick at the Tigers’ 31 and Hayes took the next snap to the house to cut the lead to 30-16.
But Johnson busted a 51-yard run for a TD 44 seconds later to cap the scoring with 2:14 left.
The teams only played once in the four seasons where Legacy made the playoffs. The Broncos won in 2009, beating Mansfield 14-7 before reaching the area round of the playoffs that season. The teams didn’t play in 2013 (regional round), 2016 (state quarterfinals) or 2017 (state semifinals).
“We have a lot of history together and we enjoy one another for sure,” said Mansfield coach Greg George, who served as Legacy coach Jeff Hulme’s defensive coordinator when he was at Mansfield High. “But it’s always good when you can beat those guys because they’re good. They’re well coached and they play hard.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 10:36 PM.