Arlington Bowie rallies to down Lamar, sets up district title showdown — PHOTOS

The Arlington Bowie football team might have been looking ahead when it met Arlington Lamar on Thursday night at Choctaw Stadium. Bowie had already clinched a playoff berth, with the District 8-6A championship game on the horizon next week against South Grand Prairie.

Lamar, however, was fighting for its playoff life, and it showed. The Vikings jumped out to an early lead and stayed on top until late in the third quarter, but the Volunteers rallied for a 45-38 win to stay unblemished in district play.

“When I hugged [Lamar coach Billy] Skinner’s neck after the game I told him thank you for making us better tonight.” Bowie coach Joseph Sam said. “I’d rather win ugly than lose pretty. There was some chatter in our locker room about next week, and I think we came out and were not focused.”

Bowie (7-2, 6-0), No. 4 in the Star-Telegram Class 6A area rankings, can now turn its full attention on the showdown with SGP (7-0-1, 5-0). No matter what happens in South Grand Prairie’s game against Haltom on Friday night, the game will be for a district championship or co-championship.

Lamar (4-5, 3-3) came out guns blazing in the first half, outgaining Bowie 341-242 in total yards and leading 31-28 at the intermission. But defensive adjustments at halftime by the Volunteers kept the Vikings to 109 yards and seven points in the second half.

“We challenged our kids at halftime, and they responded,” Sam said. “Everything that was wrong with us was just us. Hats off to Coach Skinner because he really got his kids ready to play, and they came out swinging haymakers, but we got up on the eight count and started swinging back.”

The Volunteers didn’t take their first lead until the 5:55 mark of the third quarter when running back Denzel Ponder raced around left end for a 5-yard score and a 35-31 lead.

“We stayed consistent on offense and our defense was able to bounce back in the second half and get some crucial stops for us,” said Ponder, who finished with 188 yards rushing on 20 carries and 4 receptions for 22 yards. “I really appreciate my offensive line and my coaches for blocking it up and scheming it up to set me up for a great game.”

Sam said that Ponder had been frustrated a little with not having a big game, but he said that he told him that “that’s why we feed you the ball again and again and again.” Sam knew that it would eventually happen and the 188 yards and three touchdowns provided the evidence.

Lamar answered after Ponder’s score with a 4-yard TD run by Tayrone Thomas to put Lamar back up 38-35 with 1:36 left in the third quarter. Thomas starred for the Vikings with 205 yards rushing on 16 carries and 3 TD runs of his own.

But Bowie took the lead for good when quarterback Jayden Bibbs hit Deontae Tennison with a 2-yard scoring pass with 9:30 left in the game. Leo Espindola booted a 40-yard field goal with 5:08 left to round out the scoring.

“Sometimes you have to battle adversity,” said Bibbs who had 212 yards passing hitting 22 of 27 with 3 touchdowns and added 70 yards on the ground on 15 attempts. “We got down early, but you have to keep fighting, be relentless. That’s what our coaches preached to us all week and that’s what we did today.”

Both offenses were rolling in the first half with Lamar jumping out to a 14-0 lead on scoring runs of 45 yards and 1 yard by Thomas. The Vols finally woke up with Bibbs hitting Tennison with a 5-yard scoring pass to cap a 9-play, 70-drive to cut the lead to 14-7 with 3:39 left in the first quarter.

The teams traded scores the rest of the first half with Bibbs finding Maxwell Nichols in the left flat for a 10-yard TD for Bowie. Ponder added scoring runs of 7 and 31 yards for the Volunteers with the latter coming at the 2:54 mark of the second quarter that made it 31-28 in favor of Lamar.

The Vikings scored on a pair of touchdown passes from quarterback Jayden Shaw to Khamill Pruitt of 55 and 4 yards. The scoring difference in the first half came down to a 25-yard field goal by Lamar’s Jacob Viator late in the first quarter.

“We had to make some adjustments at halftime and their score in the second half was something that we hadn’t seen on film,” said Sam. “Once we got them playing on our terms instead of us playing on their terms then I think that’s where the game flipped.”

Lamar still has a better than average shot at a playoff berth with three teams fighting for the final two playoff berths. Depending on the district tiebreakers, and a Viking win against Grand Prairie next week, Lamar is in good shape on point differential, losing to Haltom by 1 point and defeating Arlington High by 14.

This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 11:51 PM.