Roscoe football pulls away from Quanah late for first playoff win since 2016
POST — The Roscoe football team got something Thursday night it hadn’t had in a while: a test.
The Plowboys passed it with a 38-16 win against Quanah in a Region II-2A Division II bi-district playoff at Post.
The District 5 champion (10-1) trailed 9-0 after the first quarter but scored 22-straight points to take control of the game. But the game wasn’t put away until late in the fourth quarter as the Indians (2-9) didn’t go away.
“Our kids needed that,” Roscoe coach Jake Freeman said. “The last few weeks they’ve had some big scoring games and hadn’t had to play complete games. That’s a quality team. They (were) 2-8, but they played their tails off. That was good for us to get hit in the mouth and respond and overcome some adversity. That win right there, we’re going to learn a lot from it and get better from it.”
Quanah took lead on its first possession. Michael Garza took the handoff, broke a tackle up the middle and was gone for a 72-yard score. The Indians added to their lead with a 26-yard Kenny Cole field goal, making it 9-0.
Though Quanah wouldn’t score again until the fourth – a 73-yard pass from Cole to Jason Sanchez – they stayed in the game.
“Our boys fight. We've had a tough schedule and we're very young in spots, but our boys fight and you saw it tonight," Quanah coach Jason Cole said. "We were down by six points until the end and our boys never gave up. They're truly warriors and they play with class and that makes us proud."
But outside of the two big plays, the Roscoe defense got stops, including a late interception by Seth Wilcox, and never let the Indians sustain drives that finished with points.
They also had a pair of goal line stands.
Quanah had the ball at the 6-yard line when it had to settle for the field goal. And early in the second quarter, after a fumble gave the Indians the ball at Roscoe’s 17, and they got to the 9, but couldn’t convert on fourth-and-2.
“We gave up that big score early, we saw what happened and what adjustment we needed to make to stop the run,” Freeman said. “We knew we had to stop it and we did for a long period of time. They saw some things we were doing and saw they could throw a pass and they beat us on that. But if they’re going to beat us, they’re going to have to throw the ball, and I thought we did a really good job.
"Giving up those two big plays, we’ll get that corrected. I thought the defense played well, especially on the goal line in the first quarter.”
In the end, though, there was too much Antonio Aguayo and Jake Gonzalez.
The pair combined for four touchdowns and were part of three two-point conversions. Add in the play of Jax Watts at quarterback and Wilcox making things happen, the Plowboys are a dangerous team offensively.
“This is the most weapons I’ve ever had here as a coach,” Freeman said. “We’ve had some great players, but as a whole, as a team we have some big-time playmakers that can go to the house at any point. The big thing I was really happy about in the second half was to see us run the ball well. Once we were able to establish that running game, that opened up the passing game and we were able to hit some big plays on that.”
The victory sends Roscoe into the second round for the first time since 2016. The Plowboys will face the winner of Friday’s contest between District 8 runner-up Santo and Petrolia, third place out of District 7, in the area round.
“We’re 10-1 now, we got another gold ball,” Freeman said. “We’re not done. These guys’ got big plans. I like the Plowboys and what we can do. It’s time for the next one. I don’t know who we’re playing yet, but the Plowboys are on to Round 2 and we’re excited about that.”
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Game summary
► Turning point: Trailing 9-6, the Plowboys got strip sacked and Quanah took over at the 17-yard line. In two plays, the Indians were down to the 9, but didn't get any closer as the Roscoe defense stuffed a run and forced an incomplete pass. Roscoe then drove 91 yards, including a 73-yard touchdown pass, to take a lead for good.
► Player of the game: Antonio Aguayo and Seth Wilcox, RB and WR/DB, Roscoe– The duo went for 100 yards rushing and 100-yards receiving in the game. Aguayo carried the ball 11 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns and caught seven passes for 62 yards. He also threw and caught a two-point conversion pass. Meanwhile, Wilcox caught seven passes for 130 yards, including a 73-yard TD. He added a two-point conversion run and interception that helped the Plowboys pull away.
► Key stat: The Plowboys scored 16 points in two minutes, 10 seconds to turn a six-point lead into a 22-point margin of victory.
► Coach Freeman said: “That shows their resiliency. These kids have been resilient all year. We always said, ‘Bad things are going to happen in a game, let’s see how you respond.’ And every time they’ve answered the call and they did it again. … The one word I keep saying about them is resilient and they have been. To go from 1-10 last year to 10-1 right now, I can’t commend our kids enough on that."
► Coach Cole said: “Mark my words, we're going to flip this next year. We've got a lot of these kids returning, we had great leadership from the older kids this year. We're going to come storming back."
► Impact: Rosoce notches its 10th win in 11 games and wins a playoff game for the first time since 2016, when the Plowboys went three rounds deep. Quanah ends its season at 2-9.
► Up next: Roscoe advances in the Region II-2A Division II playoffs to take on the Santo-Petrolia winner in the area round.
REGION II-2A DIVISION II BI-DISTRICT
Roscoe 38, Quanah 16
Roscoe 0 14 8 16—38
Quanah 9 0 0 7—16
FIRST QUARTER
QUA — Michael Garza 72 run (kick blocked), 9:06
QUA — Kenny Cole 26 field goal, 2:30
SECOND QUARTER
ROS — Antonio Aguayo 25 run (kick blocked), 11:03
ROS — Seth Wilcox 73 pass from Jax Watts (Jake Gonzalez run), 5:20
THIRD QUARTER
ROS — Gonzalez 5 run (Wilcox run), 0:43
FOURTH QUARTER
QUA — Jason Sanchez 73 pass from Cole (Cole kick), 11:47
ROS — Gonzalez 3 run (Parker Gleaton pass from Aguayo), 4:59
ROS — Aguayo 12 run (Aguayo pass from Watts), 2:49
TEAM STATISTICS
……………… Ros … Qua
First downs … 24 … 12
Rushes-Yards … 43-177 … 23-125
Passing … 276 … 160
Comp-Att-Int … 20-34-0 … 12-33-1
Punts … 3-29.0 … 8-28.1
Fumbles-Lost … 2-1 … 1-0
Penalties-Yards … 18-185 … 16-130
INDIVDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Roscoe, Antonio Aguayo 11-111, Jake Gonzalez 17-71, Seth Wilcox 3-5, Jax Watts 6-2, TEAM 4-(-18); Quanah, Michael Garza 9-114, Jakobe McGary 8-22, Hutton O'Neal 1-5, Kenny Cole 3-0, Jason Sanchez 1-(-4), TEAM 1-(-12).
PASSING: Roscoe, Watts 20-33-0—276, Ivan McCann 0-1-0—0; Quanah, Cole 12-33-1—160.
RECEIVING: Roscoe, Wilcox 7-130, Aguayo 7-62, McCann 4-58, Lupe Leanos 1-29, Gonzalez 1-(-3); Quanah, Sanchez 4-113, McGary 4-7, Koda Wood 2-20, Jaron Honea 1-19, O'Neal 1-1.
RECORDS: Roscoe 10-1; Quanah 2-9.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Roscoe football pulls away from Quanah late for bi-district victory
