Young, inexperienced Keller Fossil Ridge digs early hole, can’t keep pace with Braswell

If Keller Fossil Ridge hopes to make a push for at least the fourth playoff spot out of District 4-6A, the young and inexperienced Panthers will have to grow up quickly.

Fossil Ridge struggled, especially early, against Little Elm Braswell, out of the Denton ISD, as the Bengals built an early lead then ran away with a 55-21 win over the Panthers on Thursday night at Keller ISD Stadium.

Fossil Ridge couldn’t stop Braswell on defense and couldn’t get out of their own way on offense early on as the Bengals built a 21-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

After losing the ball on downs at the Fossil Ridge 20 on their first series, the Bengals scored the next three times it had the ball.

Christopher Johnson got behind the Panthers’ secondary for a 32-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Nicholas Johnson. Brailyn Strickland added a 40-yard scoring run to make it 14-0 with 4:00 left in the opening quarter.

It took the Bengals only 21 seconds after that to up the lead to 21-0 when Damarion Brownlee picked off a Fossil Ridge pass and returned it 36 yards for the score.

“We lost some key components from a year ago, but as far as tonight goes we just got off to a slow start and we’ve got to do better than that early in the game,” said Fossil Ridge coach Derek Ramsey. “Just keep ourselves in the game. It’s been two weeks in a row now that we’ve dug ourselves a hole, trying to fight back out of it.”

The Panthers went three-and-out on their first two possessions and had the pick-six on the third.

“We’re not good enough to do that,” said Ramsey. “We’ve got to get a quicker start and be more competitive from the get go.”

A big loss for Fossil Ridge was running back Landen Chambers who signed with Central Arkansas. Cameron Moran has taken over as the lead running back and had 67 yards on 13 carries for the Panthers including a 40-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second quarter to cut the lead to 21-7.

“Not only do we have young kids, but we have inexperienced older kids as well so you have to look at them as a young kid as well,” said Ramsey. “That’s the key and that’s my message for the kids is that we’ve just got to get better and better each week. That way we’re looking toward getting that fourth playoff spot to buy ourselves a Week 11.”

The Johnson & Johnson duo connected again on a 54-yard score to up the Braswell lead to 28-7 with 5:24 left in the first half. Christopher Johnson took a swing pass in the left flat and broke several tackles on his way to the end zone.

Receiver Cooper Leonard was a bright spot for Fossil Ridge.

Leonard cut the lead to 28-14 when he hauled in a pass and took it 77 yards to the house. Leonard did a great job of warding off a potential tackler the last 30 yards on the play to score.

Leonard also took a kickoff back 91 yards for a score with 11:05 left in the game to slice the lead to 48-21.

“He has a lot of snaps under his belt,” said Ramsey of Leonard, who had five receptions for 150 yards. “He’s started since he was a sophomore so he comes out here and he plays like a 6A kid. He plays on the level that we need, but we just have to have more of those and we have to have kids get to a level that resembles that in a short period of time.

“That’s our goal and that’s what we’re going to try to do. Have some kids grow up.”

The Panthers had trouble stopping the Braswell offense much of the night. The Bengals rolled up 565 yards of total offense with 391 coming on the ground.

Braswell lost the ball on downs once, punted once and lost two fumbles, but scored touchdowns of each of its other eight possessions in the game.

Strickland finished with 114 rushing yards on six carries and Reymundo Izaguirre had 139 yards on 17 totes including a one-yard TD run with 2:56 left in the game to close out the scoring.

Nicholas Johnson completed 10 of 16 passes for 174 yards and added scoring runs of two and one yard for Braswell. Christopher Johnson had five catches for 83 yards and Kaden Millinder had four receptions for 82 yards.

Fossil Ridge finished with 299 yards of total offense.

“They’ve got to know that these are just three warm up games to get better and get some experience for our young kids,” said Ramsey. “Hopefully we won’t be the same team mid-season that we are in Week 2 and that’s the goal.”

This story was originally published September 1, 2023 at 1:32 AM.