Vintage defensive performance lifts Cedar Park past Glenn

LEANDER — It’s hard to quantify what tradition means for a football program like Cedar Park, which has won two state championships and played for two others over the past decade.

But the team’s fabled Black Rain defense tried its best with some eye-popping statistics in Friday’s 21-10 win over Glenn at Bible Stadium.

How about four forced fumbles against the Grizzlies? Or just 215 yards allowed? Or giving up 10 points, 18 below Glenn’s average?

All those numbers added up to a crucial win for a Cedar Park squad that seemed on the ropes entering its first-ever meeting with a young and hungry Glenn team. With the victory, the Timberwolves (3-5, 3-2 District 11-5A DI) moved into a tie with Glenn for the fourth and final playoff spot in the district and now hold the crucial tiebreaking edge over their newest Leander school district rival.

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“We talked about the playoffs; we knew what was at stake,” Cedar Park defensive end Grayson Alex said. “Winning this game was huge for us. We’re probably one of the best 2-5 teams to ever play high school football. We started off playing some really tough teams, but we knew it would help us down the road.”

A murderer’s row of a nondistrict schedule included likely Class 6A playoff teams in Cedar Ridge, Vandegrift and Round Rock. District play didn’t offer much solace with early games against state-ranked teams A&M Consolidated and College Station, which left Cedar Park 1-5 past the midway point of the season.

Second-year coach Michael Quintero, a defensive coordinator for the program during one of its championship runs a decade ago, praised his players for never panicking despite the slow start.

“I’ve been hearing it all season,” Quintero said. “I didn’t lie to the kids, I told them it was going to be hard with our schedule. They could have folded the tent after week three and said ‘Hey, we’re not going to be able to do this.’ But I’d tell them, ‘You’re preparing yourself for what we’re about to do.’

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“We played some close games and played well enough to win. People thought I was crazy and I was rolling the dice with the schedule, but I tell you what, they (the players) have answered. They’ve done everything we have asked them to do. They are just tough. That’s the one word I’d use to describe these kids. Tough.”

Cedar Park had to be tough to fend off Glenn (5-3, 3-2), a hard-nosed bunch that has embraced the physical nature of being a slot-T team. But the Grizzlies couldn’t get their ground game cranked up against a Cedar Park defense led by Alex, Santiago Martinez and the Timberwolves’ defenders tasked with clogging up the running lanes.

Star running back DJ Dugar, one of the state’s top recruits for the class of 2025, entered the contest with more than 1,000 yards on the ground but averaged just 4.6 yards a carry while totaling 84 yards rushing. Dugar’s best chance at a big play came on a third-and-goal snap from the 2-yard line midway through the second quarter that would have tied the game at 7-7, but Alex collapsed the line and held Dugar to no gain on the play.

“We have been stopped on fourth downs, and that’s been our Achilles' heel all season,” Quintero said. “I know that if you don’t get in down on the goal line on fourth down, it deflates you. Our defense has done that all year, and that was a big moment.”

Two big plays in the passing game proved the difference for Cedar Park’s offense. Quarterback Ayden Arp connected with Jackson Brock for a 41-yard touchdown just before halftime, and he found running back Tyree Nicholson for a 51-yard score midway through the third quarter that all but sealed the win.

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Nicholson, who had 149 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns, said the team’s struggles earlier this season never concerned a program that has qualified for 14 consecutive playoffs and competed in a championship game as recently as 2020.

“We got some dogs on this team, I knew that,” he said. “It didn’t matter the record. We knew that we’d come out fighting the next game because we’re all dogs. We’re used to playing everyone, all the big teams. The bigger, the better.”

The games keep getting bigger as Cedar Park tries to lock in a playoff berth. The Timberwolves close the regular season against struggling Leander and Georgetown while Glenn faces Georgetown and first-place A&M Consolidated.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Vintage defensive performance lifts Cedar Park football past Glenn