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Instant replay: Same stakes, new opponents for McKinney teams
Photo courtesy of Marc Martin
By Andrew Snyder, asnyder@starlocalnews.com
Week 2 of the football season sees McKinney North and McKinney Boyd still in pursuit of their first win of the season against Frisco Centennial and Garland, respectively, while McKinney looks to remain perfect with a showdown against Irving Nimitz.
McKinney North vs. Frisco Centennial
Friday, Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at Ron Poe Stadium
The Bulldogs will reprise their underdog role.
The undefeated Titans remain the favorite. They opened the season with dominant wins against Denison, 45-9, and Lake Dallas, 42-14, to further the reputation they established during last season’s 12-1 run, which included a perfect regular season and regional playoff berth.
The stingy Centennial defense remains one of the best in the area. In two games this season, they’ve allowed an average of 225 total yards and forced seven turnovers. In their season opener against Denison, they allowed just 34 rushing yards on an equal number of attempts.
Lamar Jordan remains the focal point of the Centennial offense. A year after throwing for more than 2,400 yards and 24 touchdowns and rushing for another 900 yards and 11 touchdowns, the senior quarterback has already tallied 373 yards and four touchdowns on 27-of-42 passing (64 percent) and rushed for two additional scores.
The Titans have three wideouts – Kelly Cordova, Jacob Atchely and Stoney Hawkins – with over 100 receiving yards. Cordova leads the team with 122 yards and a touchdown on six receptions and also threw a 60-yard touchdown on a trick play against Lake Dallas.
Centennial’s ground game is led by junior running back Chris Johnson, who has 192 yards and two touchdowns on 29 carries as another option in the team’s multi-tiered attack that has averaged 373 yards and an efficient 43 points per game.
That’s plenty to contend with for a Bulldogs team off to a slow start with losses against Carrollton Newman Smith, 21-17, and Prosper, 31-10. After facing Centennial, they’ll take a week off before opening district on the road against Sherman on Sept, 28.
McKinney Boyd vs. Garland
Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Garland’s Williams Stadium
After spending the past two years as bitter district rivals, Garland and McKinney Boyd are off to similarly disappointing, winless starts to the 2012 season. The teams have each shown quality flashes they’ve been unable to sustain, though Garland’s moment of brilliance was very short lived.
The Owls played a powerful first quarter in their opener against Plano East, jumping out to a quick 13-0 lead, but after the Panthers responded with a 28-point second quarter to pace their eventual 35-20 win, their hasn’t been much good news for Garland.
Garland’s season spiraled further downward with last week’s 42-0 loss to Mesquite Horn. In that game, the Owls were held to a shade over 100 yards of offense and just three first downs. They had an equally difficult time stopping the Horn offense, which took advantage of quality field position to pick the Owls apart.
Horn also beat the Broncos, but they fared much better in a 38-20 loss. Boyd was able to move the ball and put up points on a 40-yard and 15-yard rush from senior running back Bryan Driskell and a 34-yard pass from junior quarterback Curtis Ladd to senior wide receiver Kevin McCormick.
Boyd failed to stay as competitive in a 31-6 loss to Coppell, another quality opponent, last week. Garland represents the last in a three-set of tough teams the Broncos scheduled to open the season, and a win against the Owls would go a long way toward turning things around for them. In their two years together in District 10-5A, Garland won both its meetings with the Broncos and was the only district team to beat them.
“We’ve played Garland the last two years and we’re very familiar with them,” said Don Drake, Boyd head football coach. “When we were in the same district with them, they were our only two losses and one of the reasons we wanted to schedule them is because we know they’re a quality opponent. It’s also one of those things where if you haven’t beaten them, you want to keep trying to get it done.”
McKinney vs. Irving Nimitz
Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Irving Schools Stadium
In a reversal of fortunes from last season, McKinney stands as the city’s lone winning team. The undefeated Lions – who have beaten Mansfield Legacy, 55-46, and Frisco Heritage, 45-21 – continue to put miles between them and their winless 2011 season, and they’ll look to add a few more this week against Nimitz.
“They’re big, they’re athletic, they’re physical,” said Jeff Smith, McKinney head football coach. “They’ve been 5A for a long time, so this will be a good challenge for us for sure.”
After opening the season with a 44-14 win against North Garland – who McKinney plays next week – Nimitz evened its record with a 67-17 loss against Arlington Lamar in which it allowed more than 500 yards of offense and turned the ball over four times. Lamar scored 21 points in the first quarter and 30 in the second to quickly put the game out of reach.
The Nimitz offense runs through quarterback Jimmy Clark, who so far this season has thrown for 280 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions on 38-of-61 passing (62 percent). His favorite targets are wideouts Jorge Horta and Gabe Castillo.
“They’re a spread team for the most part, but they like to run the inside zone and run the football behind their big offensive line,” Smith said. “They throw a short-passing game and a drop-back passing game and have a couple of good receivers and a quarterback that is kind of a dual-threat guy.”
Those offensive numbers don’t compare to those being produced by the Lions. McKinney is averaging 500 yards per game through a variety of outlets. Last week in a 45-21 win against Frisco Heritage, the Lions turned to a trio of lengthy touchdown passes to pace their win. It took senior quarterback Robert Somborn just four completions to rack up 166 yards and three touchdowns, which came on passes of 48 yards and 62 yards to TV Williams and a 56-yard pass to Jonathan Shannon.
After a disappointing opening week in which they gave up over 500 yards of offense in a 55-46 win against Mansfield Legacy, McKinney’s defense also came up big against Heritage, chipping in a pair of interceptions returned for touchdowns courtesy of Jontrell Rocquemore and Dalton Harris.
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