Timber Creek defense helps seal victory over Byron Nelson with strong fourth quarter

Keller Timber Creek used a strong defensive effort in the final quarter to complement an offense sparked by the duo of Jason Akers and Kaden Bess to take a 41-28 District 5-6A win over Trophy Club Nelson on Thursday night at Northwest ISD Stadium.

In a seesaw battle of two potent offenses, Timber Creek fell behind early in the third quarter after building a 17-14 lead at halftime.

Nelson scored on 3-yard burst by running back Maxwell Modeste to take a 21-17 advantage only to see Timber Creek respond with quarterback Akers running two yards for a score and then hitting wide receiver Jacob Bowersock for an 11-yard TD to go back up 31-21.

Nelson quickly responded behind the passing and running of quarterback Hudson White to narrow Timber Creek’s lead to 31-28 when White hit Tanner Arnold with a touchdown pass of 25 yards. That was the second TD reception for Arnold but the final score for the Falcons.

Timber Creek was able to ice the win with a second field goal from Jose-Carlo Martinez and a 4-yard run by Bess that capped a time-consuming march on the ground that covered 54 yards on 10 plays, using more than 5 minutes.

Defensively, Timber Creek got big plays from Mike Sanjo-Niiki with a fumble recovery and Jeremi Cook with an interception returned 39 yards. Cook also caught a TD pass from Akers in the first half.

Timber Creek is now 2-5 for the season while Nelson drops to 0-7.