Southlake Carroll completes perfect regular season, claims district title

For the fourth straight game, the Carroll defense came up big.

The Dragons closed out the regular season with a 49-3 win over Keller Central on Friday at Dragon Stadium to wrap up a second straight undefeated regular season.

“It means a lot,” Southlake Carroll coach Riley Dodge said of that streak, the sixth such time he’s guided his alma mater to a perfect regular season. “We told our kids we are the 21st team in school history to do that and this is the 63rd year of Carroll football. It’s special.”

With a bye next week, Southlake Carroll (10-0, 8-0) closed the 2025 regular season by giving up 17 points over the final four games. For the season, the defense has given up a touchdown or less in four games and yielded only 68 points so far this year.

Of those 68 points, Keller and Keller Timber Creek accounted for 41.

The lone points given up on Friday came on a field goal by Keller Central on a drive that started at the Carroll 3-yard line following an interception return by linebacker Austin Martin.

That got the Chargers on the board and made it 14-3 at the break.

On the previous drive, the Chargers (5-4, 3-4) had a touchdown taken off the board due to a flag and then a field attempt of 28 yards was missed.

The Dragons’ defense had a one-play break and played for more than 3 1/2 minutes on those two Keller Central drives.

“With the sudden change after the offense threw the pick, we had a long goal-line drive, and we played well,” said defensive back Taevin Kunz. “We were detailed in our techniques, and I’m just really proud of how our defense played.”

The defense and special teams keyed a pivotal third quarter that featured 28 points and blew the game open.

The Chargers got the ball to open the second half and had a 12-yard gain on a run from quarterback Isaiah Taylor on the first offensive play.

Then, the offense sputtered and punted to Carroll. Parker Harris had a 42-yard return to the 20 that set up a short field and a quick touchdown by Davis Penn. His 8-yard touchdown was his second score of the night, part of a 170-yard effort.

Southlake Carroll’s defense helped account for the next two scores.

Kunz had his second defensive score of the season on a 38-yard interception return that came 27 seconds after Penn’s touchdown.

“We didn’t have the mindset (right) coming into this game, but we turned it up a notch after halftime,” Kunz said. “We had to come out and get momentum for us. The first half is not how we are supposed to play. We have to be our standard every game and that was our standard in the first half. We came out and showed what we are like.”

Dodge said the staff challenged the defense to step up in the second half.

“We made the plays we were supposed to make in the first half,” he said. “We answered the bell.”

Seven plays after Kunz’s pick, the Dragons got another turnover.

Linebacker William Leins got an interception on Taylor and ran it back to the Chargers’ 40.

Renda threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Boyd and the 14-3 advantage was quickly 35-3 with over eight minutes off the clock in the third quarter.

Renda had touchdown passes to Caden Mackey and Blake Gunter to cap off a 4-touchdown game before exiting in the fourth quarter.

“We’re getting people throwing a lot of different things out and doing different things at us that they’re not normally doing, offensively or defensively,” Dodge said. “Credit to Central. I’m proud of how our guys responded. We got to respond a little bit sooner, but I’m OK with 49 points.”

This story was originally published November 1, 2025 at 12:12 AM.