Highland Park defense finally solves Magnolia to turn close game into late playoff rout

All week long, Highland Park coach Randy Allen called Thursday’s Class 5A-Division 1 area playoff game against Magnolia a classic “trap game.”

“I told them that we’ve got to be careful, because Magnolia is a really good football team,” he said. “If our people were looking ahead to next week, we would get upset. So, we tried to emphasize that all week. I thought our guys came out and played a complete game.”

It took a little more than a half for three-time defending state champion Highland Park to figure out Magnolia’s read-option offense, led by dual-threat quarterback Travis Moore, but once the Scots’ defense found their footing, they had little trouble with the Bulldogs.

Chandler Morris completed 16 of 24 passes for 281 yards with five total touchdowns in three quarters of action and the Highland Park defense forced four Magnolia turnovers in a 63-28 rout at AT&T Stadium on Thursday night.

The Scots (11-1), ranked No. 4 in 5A-1 according to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, advanced to the third round of the playoffs and will face the winner of Friday’s game between top-ranked Frisco Lone Star (11-0) and College Station (8-3) next week at a location and date to be determined. Magnolia finished the season at 8-4.

The final score doesn’t reflect how close the game actually was for a while.

The first half was a classic quarterback battle between Moore and Morris.

On the second play from scrimmage, Morris threw a pass over the middle to Case Savage, who burst 78 yards for pay dirt on the catch-and-run play, for his first of three touchdowns on the night, and a 7-0 Scots lead. Savage caught six passes for 135 yards and three touchdowns.

Magnolia answered with a 24-yard pass from Moore to Ben Renfro on the seventh play of the ensuing Bulldogs drive, tying the score at 7-all with 7:20 remaining in the first quarter.

Moore gave the Bulldogs their first and only lead of the night, at 14-7, just over three minutes into the second quarter on a 7-yard pass to Ben Coligan. The Magnolia quarterback finished the night 22-of-37 through the air with 238 yards to go along with 66 rushing yards on 12 carries. But two interceptions proved costly.

A few minutes after Highland Park running back Hunter Heath ran from the 15 for a touchdown, lifting the Scots into a 14-all tie, Tanner Schrank and the Highland Park defense finally began to figure out the Bulldogs offense, which included a go-ahead, 45-yard interception return for a touchdown from the Scots junior defensive back.

“It was a big third down,” Schrank said. “The quarterback was looking at me at the start of the play. Right when the receiver cut for the ball, I was reading his eyes. The receiver kept going. I made the play on the ball. I made sure to catch it and ran down the sidelines.”

Allen called Schrank’s interception a game-changer.

“I thought that gave us a ton of momentum,” Allen said.

With 56 seconds remaining in the first half, Morris found Savage wide open in the left side of the end zone for a 4-yard touchdown pass and a 28-14 Scots lead.

Magnolia didn’t go away quietly.

The Bulldogs regrouped at halftime and got a 51-yard run from Mitch Hall on the second play of the third quarter which set up a 2-yard run from Cedric Harris, a 6-foot, 300-pound lineman, to cut the deficit to 28-21.

That was as close as Magnolia got.

Highland Park proceeded to blitz Magnolia with five touchdowns in a span of seven minutes with two of the scores set up by interceptions in Bulldogs territory — the first on a takeaway by Patrick Turner and the second on a Marshall Landwehr pick — as the Scots took a commanding 63-21 lead after an 11-yard pass from Morris to Heath with 3:30 remaining in the third quarter.

That avalanche of scores for Highland Park began when Morris ran the quarterback keeper 58 yards on the offensive play immediately after Harris’ score to restore a two-touchdown lead for the defending state champion Scots.

“At halftime, we just told the offense that we’ve got to come out prepared. They’re not going to go out easy,” Morris said. “They came down, they scored. Exactly what they wanted to do. I just told them on the sideline, ‘We’ve got to respond.’ That’s what we did right after.”

Morris also had touchdown passes of 39 yards, 11 and 11 within that span and also got a 37-yard run from Heath as Highland Park delivered the dagger into Magnolia’s season.

Heath was a weapon all night for Highland Park, finishing with 114 rushing yards on nine carries in addition to 37 receiving yards.

This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 11:06 PM.