Southlake Carroll football throttles Midland, secures shutout

The pre-season 6A top-ranked Southlake Carroll Dragons rolled to a 49-0 victory over the Midland Bulldogs in a non-district season-opening matchup on Friday, Aug. 29 at Astound Broadband Stadium.

The contest, with a start delayed 95 minutes due to lightning in the area, was dominated by Southlake Carroll.

When the game finally got underway, the Dragon offense produced some lightning of its own.

Quarterback Angelo Renda, a Pitt pledge, connected with his favorite target, Ohio State commit Brock Boyd, on a 32-yard touchdown on the game’s opening possession.

The Dragons never looked back in blanking the Bulldogs.

“That was a long weather delay,” said Boyd. “We wanted to come out with a fast start and were able to do that. Great opening season win. Did some things well offensively, defense was lights out.”

Renda, who registered 260 passing yards, completing 16 of 24, hit Blake Gunter with a pair of TD strikes — a 28-yard first-period score and a 14-yarder in the final quarter.

“We did some good things offensively,” said Renda, while lamenting his two interceptions. “Got to clean those up. But overall, great job by all the guys. Running backs were tremendous, and the defense was just amazing.”

The running backs, junior Brooks Biggers and sophomore Harrison Phillips, had a coming out party themselves, playing for standout senior Davis Penn, who suited up but did not play.

Running behind perhaps the best offensive line in Texas high school football, Biggers had 103 rushing yards and a pair of TDs. Phillips racked up 92 yards on just 10 carries, including a 42-yard TD burst to start the second stanza.

“Those two running backs did a heckuva job,” said head coach Riley Dodge. “Davis had a good week of practice and he suited up and warmed up, but we felt best to let him heal some more, and at same time give other guys a chance to step up, and they did in a big way.”

Running back Emerson Ziadie rounded out the scoring on a three-yard TD run with 54 seconds remaining in the game.

The stellar defense held Midland to 140 yards total offense, including allowing just one pass completion in five attempts for six yards.

“Just a great job by a defense all night,” said Dodge. “We were physical and made plays all over the field.”

The deepest penetration for Midland was at the Dragons’ 20-yard line in the final quarter, but a fourth-down stop gave the ball back to the Southlake offense, which led to the second Gunter TD catch.

Southlake Carroll did not punt the entire game and totaled 29 first downs while holding Midland to only eight.

This was also the first season-opener shutout in Dodge’s eighth season leading the Dragons.

The last time Midland was held scoreless was 56 games ago (10-25-19), a 62-0 loss which was the second straight shutout defeat after a 33-0 setback to Frenship the previous week.

Duke commit, placekicker Gavin Strange nailed all seven of his PAT attempts, and all eight of his kickoffs were touchbacks, with all but one through the end zone.

Boyd (six catches) and Gunter (five receptions) each totaled 88 receiving yards.

Southlake Carroll (1-0) hosts Hebron in a non-district matchup next Friday night Sept. 5th, with a scheduled 7 p.m. kickoff at Dragon Stadium, before its eight-game district 4-6A slate.

This will be a rematch of a thrilling third-round 6A DII 2024 playoff matchup, which the Dragons won 42-37 as Renda accounted for five TDs and 407 yards total offense. Boyd had 12 receptions for 227 yards and a score in that contest.