Southlake Carroll football dedicates field to Bob Ledbetter, steamrolls El Paso Eastwood
SOUTHLAKE — Friday was a good night for Southlake Carroll quarterbacks.
Three of the four signal callers that got into the game scored a touchdown, which led to a 69-21 victory over El Paso Eastwood on Friday. It was a special day at Dragon Stadium; the field was dedicated to former head coach Bob Ledbetter, who led Southlake Carroll to three state championships.
Starting QB Graham Knowles, the Star-Telegram Preseason Player of the Year, set the tone in the win. Knowles stole the show with five touchdown passes, while backup quarterback Angelo Renda accounted for two scores.
Third-stringer Carter Lind put an exclamation point on the season-opener victory.
Carroll senior wide receiver Jacob Jordan hauled in three touchdowns, while senior Erik Bussmann caught two touchdowns from two different quarterbacks.
Knowles, a Georgia Tech commit, completed 19 of 27 passes for 322 yards and threw all five of his touchdowns in the first half.
After throwing a touchdown pass to senior Caden Jackson on the team’s opening drive, the Knowles-to-Jordan connection led to three touchdowns through the air.
Jordan caught two scores in a 1-minute span, making it 21-0 with scores at the 5:12 and 4:12 mark in the first quarter. Jordan had touchdown catches of 19, 30 and 51 yards.
“Jake is my guy,” Knowles said of the wideout who pledged to play at Oklahoma. “He’s really easy to throw to so I just get it in his hands and he gives me good stats.”
On his last drive of the first half, Knowles completed passes to junior tight end Jack VanDorselaer, sophomore wide receiver Brock Boyd and then Bussmann for the score.
“We put in a lot of preparation into this game over the summer so it feels great to go out there and to execute at the level we know we could,” Knowles said.
The Troopers, 9-3 last year, never really challenged the Dragons but scored 14 of their 21 points in the first half. Quarterback Evan Minjarez threw a touchdown to Rudy Garcia and then Jayden Martinez ran in for a score.
Southlake coach Riley Dodge said it was a little different playing the Troopers, who didn’t have a scrimmage last week. The Dragons could only look at film from last year’s contest to prepare.
“I love how we started the ball game in all three phases,” Dodge said. “We had a couple first-game stuff we need to clean up but I’m really proud of the guys. We didn’t have a lot of film on them so we didn’t have a lot to go on. We wanted to keep it simple and operate.”
Backup quarterback Angelo Renda passed for a score and added a 75-yard run for the Dragons, while Lind added a touchdown run in the fourth quarter. No. 4 quarterback Mac Wilson even got time to take a few snaps.
The lopsided outcome gave Carroll a chance to get a lot of player snaps.
“I think it gives us momentum going into next week,” Dodge said. “We got guys’ confidence and knocked some cobwebs off. It was nice to compete with someone else besides ourselves every day.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2023 at 1:28 AM.