North Crowley football’s reign ends at the hands of ‘masterful’ No. 2 Allen — PHOTOS

North Crowley’s hopes of a repeat state championship came to an end Friday night.

The No. 9-ranked Panthers couldn’t overcome a sluggish start and lost 33-21 to No. 2 Allen in a Class 6A Division I regional final at DATCU Stadium at the University of North Texas.

“They had a really good plan for us; they shut us down on our run game. We got it going in the second half,” North Crowley head coach Ray Gates said. “You know, they were the better team. So you tip your hat to Allen and Coach [Lee] Wiginton. He had his group ready to go. They did a masterful job.”

The Panthers (12-2) had beaten Allen (14-0) in each of the past two years in the postseason.

After the first two drives, the teams were tied at 7-7, then Allen scored 21 straight points.

Quarterback Jeremiah Daoud threw a pair of touchdowns, and then Allen took advantage of a fortunate bounce in the second quarter.

Lyndon Spriggs was running near the end zone and fumbled. North Crowley fell on it first, but when the pile was untangled, Allen tight end Jackson Hoppe had it.

That gave Allen a 21-7 lead that it took into halftime.

The lead grew to 28-7 in the third quarter. A late hit by North Crowley on a punt return gave Allen a short field, and the Eagles capped that drive with a 10-yard touchdown to Jaden Davis with 5:55 left in the third.

North Crowley finally got the run game going after falling behind by three scores.

G’Yrell Smith had his second touchdown run, but the 14-play drive took more than four minutes.

North Crowley then got an interception by Elijajuan Houston — his second of the game — which gave the Panthers the ball back with 39 seconds left.

The Panthers couldn’t capitalize and punted.

Then, another break went Allen’s way. A catch interference call gave Allen 15 yards, and the Eagles started near midfield. That ended with a 28-yard field goal with 7:45 left.

“Whenever we get a turnover and don’t score … we shot ourselves in the foot, and we got behind the chains early,” Gates said. “You can’t do that against an aggressive team like that.”

North Crowley trimmed the deficit to 10 on a 14-yard run by Hayes Cloutier with 5:14 left. The quarterback scrambled to his left and dove toward the pylon and hit it on his way down.

North Crowley got a stop and got the ball back, but then another “one of those nights” plays happened.

Cloutier was called for intentional grounding in the end zone. The ball was on the ground and Allen thought it had a touchdown, but instead got a safety.

“Tonight was one of those weird games,” Gates said. “When you have games like this, you have to be able to fight through it. When you get deeper in the playoffs, the better the competition gets. Those guys just did an unbelievable job of playing with the right energy. They had a good plan, and they executed it.”