Alvarado stays undefeated, cruises past Eastern Hills in first round of playoffs
Alvarado breezed by its first-round playoff opponent in Eastern Hills with a dominating 76-12 win over the Highlanders for a bi-district trophy on Thursday, Nov. 14 at Crowley ISD Stadium.
“Anytime you get a championship and bring home a trophy, it builds confidence,” said Alvarado head coach Casey Walraven. “We executed well, but there are some things we got to get ready because the road is getting real, soon.”
He gave credit to Eastern Hills, who finished the season 4-7.
The win tonight for the Indians added another “stone” into the team’s gauntlet—a unique pop culture reference from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that the team has rallied around.
“You want identity,” said Walraven. “When the coaches try to come up with something, it feels forced, but it happened naturally and the team started calling it Thanos’ gauntlet.”
The Alvarado head coach found a replica gauntlet online a week ago, and he said the team really embraced and started using the stones to represent the goals it wants to achieve.
Tonight’s stone was obtained with the help of a dominant first half that set the tone for the rest of the game. By halftime, the Indians had put up 380 yards of offense and 55 points.
Quarterback Cardea Collier threw for 218 yards passing, rushed for 23 yards and had five total touchdowns. His only blemish of the half was an interception that led to an Eastern Hills touchdown.
Two of Collier’s passing touchdowns went to wide receiver Logan Bjork, who ended the half and the game with 84 yards receiving and two touchdowns.
Collier had two more passing touchdowns on the night, one going to wide receiver Lance Sansom, who ended the night with 48 yards receiving.
The other went to running back Demarcus Belton, who might have notched the award for Most Valuable Player.
He finished the night with 91 yards rushing (54 of them came in the first half), 72 yards receiving, and three total touchdowns (all in the first half).
Alvarado’s wide receiver Schyler Dethorne didn’t have touches until the end of the first half, but he made the most of them. He scored a 58-yard rushing touchdown with 36 seconds left in the first half.
Then, after Alvarado successfully recovered its second onside kick of the second half, Dethrone found the end zone again, this time rushing 26 yards.
Walraven said it’s extremely important to have so many players that can produce, especially in the playoffs.
“We don’t want one guy unless we have to,” he said. “We love to spread it around and make it hard to defend us. [Collier] does so much for us but all of our guys have play-making ability so it’s just whoever has the hot hand that night.”
Even in a game already out-of-reach, Walraven was proud of the Alvarado special teams that recovered two onside kicks and didn’t allow any big returns.
“We worked on our special teams a ton—the kickoff for probably more than any of it,” he said. “We want to be aggressive on special teams like we are offensively and defensively.”
The Indians scored one last time on a 47-yard rush from running back DJ Clampitt in the fourth quarter before kneeling out the clock with its last possession, putting the cherry on top of a dominant win.
In his postgame speech, Walraven spoke calmly about enjoying the win for tonight and being ready to work starting tomorrow.
“We’ve talked about it all summer. We’re one of about 10 teams we feel can go to the state championship,” he said. “So we expect [these outcomes], and we have to get to the next level because we’re fixing to start facing other teams that are also part of those 10 teams.”
The Indians (11-0) will face the winner of the game between Panther Creek (9-1) and Pinkston (4-6). Those two teams face off on Friday, Nov. 15.
This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 11:58 PM.