Duncanville topples top team in country; playing for first state title in 20 years

Defense wins championships.

In a tale of two halves, defense ultimately sealed the deal for Duncanville in its upset victory over Allen, USA Today’s No. 1 team in the country.

The Panthers overcame Allen’s furious second-half rally and a safety iced the game as the No. 11 team in the country dethroned the Eagles, last year’s champ, 44-35, in the Class 6A Division I semifinals at AT&T Stadium on Saturday.

“It means a lot to me, my kids, our community, our players,” Duncanville head coach Reginald Samples said. “I don’t think about what happened at Skyline [where he coached for nine years before taking the Duncanville job. “We’re at Duncanville and we’re going to go far here.”

Duncanville (14-0) is one win away from winning its second state title in program history, 20 years after its first in 1998, when the Panthers return to Arlington next Saturday to take on No. 2 Galena Park North Shore (15-0) at 7 p.m.

“It’s a great feeling,” Duncanville quarterback Ja’Quinden Jackson said. “I knew we had it in us. We were able to do it. It’s a mental thing. It’s a mindset that everyone has on the team that we really didn’t have last year.”

Allen’s 30-game winning streak was on the brink of ending when the Eagles trailed 35-14 at halftime; their biggest deficit of the season and biggest since their last loss to The Woodlands during the 2016 semis.

But after the Eagles (14-1) scored three touchdowns in the third quarter to tie the game at 35-35, the Panthers’ offense finally came back to life midway through the fourth.

Duncanville converted two fourth downs during an 8-play drive, the latter a 40-yard TD run from Jackson, his third of the game, to push his team back in front 42-35 with three minutes to play.

“I knew they were going to overrun it,” said Jackson, who rushed for 174 yards and also threw for a TD. “I was looking for the lane, I saw it, touchdown. There you go. Put it in the books.”

The Panthers added a safety less than a minute later when De’Braylon Carroll sacked Allen quarterback Grant Tisdale in the end zone, and the Duncanville defense picked up sack No. 7 and 8 on the Eagles’ final desperation drive.

“All game I was whooping the center,” Carroll said. “They slid away from me and I just hit them with a nice move. I missed a couple of sacks earlier. It was my fault. But I promised my team I was going to make a play.

“I feel like I’m on top of the world. It’s a surreal feeling playing in this stadium and beating a good team like them.”

Duncanville made a statement with a 73-yard TD run on the first play of the game from Trysten Smith, but Allen tied it when Tisdale threw a 63-yard pass to Oklahoma commit Theo Wease less than two minutes later.

The Panthers led 14-7 midway through the period when Ja’von Fountain scampered in on a 21-yard TD run, but again Tisdale and Wease hooked up to tie the game with a 12-yard pass, 10 minutes before intermission.

A 68-yard return on the ensuing kickoff from Daveon Walker got Duncanville inside the 10 and Jackson scored on an 8-yard run for a 14-7 lead. He added a 92-yard TD run on their next possession to go up two scores.

Chris Thompson picked off an Allen pass, returned it 33 yards and Jackson hit Walker for a 33-yard TD one play later to help send the Panthers into the break up 35-14.

The Eagles tied it in the third quarter, first with a fake punt as Justin Hall scored from 60 yards. Tisdale threw a 36-yard TD to Darrion Sherfield midway through the frame and Celdon Manning capped off the comeback with a 15-yard TD run with 1:11 left.

But Allen would gain just one yard with two punts on its next three drives.

“The last time we won state was 20 years ago,” Carroll said. “Nobody has done this since 1998. My freshman year, Coach Reginald Samples’ first class, we said we were going to win it all. We have been putting our blood, sweat, and tears into winning a state championship. This is a dream come true.”

Smith rushed 15 times for 130 yards while the Panthers gained 357 on the ground.

Tisdale accounted for 304 yards and Wease had 106 yards on seven catches, but made two in the second half.

“It wasn’t just Allen. We wanted to beat whoever we played. Our goal is the state championship.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2018 at 8:00 PM.