Colleyville Heritage falls to Anna in bi-district round of high school football playoffs

Locked into a one-possession game at halftime, Colleyville Heritage had a chance to make some noise against a defending state champion.

However, a pair of fourth-down conversions early in the second half went against the Panthers both times.

That allowed Anna to storm ahead and not look back in a 45-10 win on Friday, Nov. 15 in a Class 5A Division II bi-district game at Mustang-Panther Stadium.

Anna, last year’s Class 4A Division I champions, advances to play Wylie in the area round.

Heritage saw a five-game winning streak and the season ended with an 8-3 mark.

“The expectation at Colleyville is to win, and we kind of came up a little short on that tonight,” said Heritage coach Jerry Edwards, who led the Panthers to a 12-2 showing last year in his debut season. “We’ll get back together, and hopefully, we’ll be back here next year.”

Heritage was down 10-7 at the break and got the ball to open the third quarter. Bryce Abram had a 15-yard run on the first play, to get to the 40-yard line. Two more runs got the ball to the 49-yard line.

Heritage chose to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the 48. Defensive tackle Kaiden Banks got in the backfield and stopped the Panthers for no gain.

Anna (8-3) converted two third downs, and then quarterback Ziondre Williams ran for a 24-yard gain on 4th-and-2 at the Colleyville 29. Two plays later, Edward Chumley scored on a 1-yard run with 5:50 left in the third.

“I think both teams were going to be aggressive on fourth down,” Anna coach Seth Parr said. “We were playing for four downs. We just kind of let the game come to us instead of trying to force it. They did a great job of putting a defense out there that put a cap on everything.”

Heritage had to punt on the next possession, but Anna fumbled on its first play, and Chase Gibson picked up at the Anna 20-yard line.

Five plays later, Heritage got points on the board on a 37-yard field goal from Landon Dressel. That trimmed the deficit to 17-10 with 1:14 left in the third.

Anna was driving when the quarter ended, up by seven. Four touchdowns later, the Coyotes were on the way to a blowout win.

One play into the fourth, Williams hit Ronald Bell for a 4-yard touchdown. Earlier on the drive, in the third, the two connected for a 57-yard drive.

Anna’s next drive ended with a blocked field goal.

Heritage moved into the Coyotes’ territory on a 16-yard run by Abrams. On what appeared to be an offsides by Anna that wasn’t called, Ashton Ansley picked up a pass at the 10-yard line and returned it 90 yards for a score.

Edwards and most of the Panthers staff believed it was an early jump by Anna to set up what was essentially a free play. Instead, the play stood. Williams hit Chumley on the 2-point conversion to make it 31-10 with 6:25 to play.

“The score isn’t really indicative of how the game went,” Edwards said. “Seven minutes or six minutes left, we were driving down to pull within one score, and we had a controversial call, and it turns into a pick-6. We were trying to make something happen and they piled it up on us at the end.”

Williams added an 8-yard touchdown run and Chumley ran for a 78-yard score during the next 5 minutes. Williams threw for 301 yards and ran for 100 yards in the win for Anna.

The contest was tied 0-0 after the first quarter. Anna went up 7-0 on the first of Chumley’s three touchdowns on the first play of the second quarter.

Bodey Weaver hit Luke Graves for an 18-yard score with 1:30 left in the second quarter.

Anna got a field goal from Desmar Marroquin from 38 yards with 22 seconds left. Both of Anna’s first-half scoring drives were 14 plays — the latter spanned 92 yards.