Grandview rolls to a big win over Whitesboro to open the Class 3A Division 1 playoffs

The Grandview football team is looking to regain its dominance from its days when the Zebras were back-to-back state champions in 2018 and 2019. Turns out they’re not that far away.

The rebuilding is still in progress, but the 2024 unit got things going in the right direction with a 54-17 thumping of Whitesboro to open the state playoffs in a Class 3A Division 1 bi-district contest on Nov. 14 at Mustang-Panther Stadium.

“It’s very exciting,” said junior running back Elijah Dominguez, who had 68 yards rushing on 13 carries and two touchdowns for the Zebras. “We’ve been playing together since we were in Pee Wee football and it’s always been a thing that we’ve talked about. We can’t wait to be that senior class, especially growing up and seeing our guys win state in 2018 and 2019.

“It’s a standard now. We’re young this year, but we still want to see how far we can take it in the playoffs. We never want to count ourselves out, but we know what we’ll have to bring to the table next year and hopefully it will be a trip back to Jerry World.”

It was an up and down season for Grandview (7-4) which came into the game as the second seed out of a competitive District 5-3A D1. Part of that was due the youth of the team according to Grandview coach Ryan Ebner whose focus this week has been getting his players to put four good quarters together.

“We have a very, very young group and we were preaching all week long, with some hard conversations, about playing four quarters,” said Ebner. “A lot of times one half or the other has been 1000 times better and so we told the kids to grow up and let’s put four quarters together. Tonight we had a little different focus session and some hard talks before the game and at halftime just to keep them playing four quarters and I think they did that tonight.”

Whitesboro (6-5) just couldn’t get a stop on Grandview in the first half as the Zebras scored touchdowns on each of their first four possessions.

Dominguez got things rolling for Grandview carrying five times for 32 yards on the Zebra opening possession that followed a Whitesboro punt. Dominguez capped the nine-play, 48-yard drive with a nine-yard scoring run around left end to give Grandview an 8-0 lead, following a Preston Carroll two-point conversion run, with 7:16 left in the first quarter.

Grandview got a 29-yard pass play from quarterback Mason Landers to Kason Sanders to the Whitesboro 14 yard line on the Zebras second series. Gavin Carroll took a reverse around right end for a 10-yard score with Landers hitting Sanders for two to make it 16-0 Grandview at the 2:54 mark of the first quarter.

The Bearcats used three different quarterbacks, two sophomores and a freshman, during the game due to the injury last week of starter Colt Fagan, son of Whitesboro coach Cody Fagan. Camden Stephens did come in and give Whitesboro a spark gaining 48 yards rushing and getting the Bearcats down to the Grandview 17, but the drive stalled there and Victor Chavez came on and booted a 35-yard field goal to cut the lead to 16-3 with 58 seconds left in the opening frame.

Dominguez scored again, this time from five yards out, on Grandview’s next series and ran in the conversion try to up the lead to 24-3 with 10:17 left before halftime.

Sanders then did some work on defense picking off a Whitesboro pass at the Grandview five yard line and returning it out to the 20. On the ensuing play, Sanders ran a post down the middle and Landers hit him in stride for an 80-yard score to make it 32-3 with 8:04 left before the intermission.

Sanders picked off a second pass with 1:54 left in the game to kill a Whitesboro drive at the Zebras’ one yard line.

“Our inside run was working really well tonight,” said Landers, who hit nine of 12 passes for 191 yards and rushed 11 times for 72 yards. “Our line was doing a fantastic job and that got the defense into a pressing man coverage which works really good for us. But most of our success came from inside with our interior linemen who did a really good job tonight.”

Grandview put the game away in the third quarter with a 16-yard scoring run by Landers, a 40-yard scoring pass from Landers to Preston Carroll, and a 51-yard pick six by Gavin Carroll that pushed the lead to 54-10.

“I was dropping back in pass coverage and wasn’t really expecting to get the ball to come to me,” said Gavin Carroll, who’s Preston Carroll’s twin. “He threw it and I said, crap here it comes. I got it and just took off running.”

Ebner calls Gavin Carroll his ‘Swiss army knife’, a player that can play pretty much anywhere on the field. Gavin Carroll moved from outside linebacker to middle linebacker this week due to an injury and came away with a pick six, several quarterback pressures, sacks, and tackles for losses.

Ebner says that he has a lot of good classes coming so the Zebras return to dominance might not be that far away.

“This was a young group, but down to my son, who’s in third grade, there’s just a line of great athletes,” said Ebner. “This is a great place, our community is awesome, and I’ve got a lot of good friends here. I’ve been at Grandview for 22 years now. It’s a great place.”

“I’m super excited,” said Landers, a sophomore, on the future of the Zebras program. “I love Grandview, I love the kids and I love the coaches. Relationships are fantastic.

“They’re more worried about building us as young men than getting wins. Of course you want the wins, but that’s not what they’re here for.

The Zebras are still trying to see how far they can go in the playoffs this season. Turns out it might be a long way.