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Cat Clash: Panthers, Wildcats to add 31st chapter to city rivalry
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@starlocalnews.com
With 30 years worth of head-to-head football in the books, Plano East and Plano Senior have battled each other to virtual gridlock.
And while it's the Wildcats who possess the lengthy tradition and litany of state championships, it's the Panthers who own the edge in the overall series, 15-14-1.
It's fitting, given that a win in Friday's 7:30 p.m. clash from Clark Stadium could mean having the slightest leg-up in the District 10-5A playoff race.
Ringo and Plano head coach Jaydon McCullough have been entrenched in the city rivalry for years. For the latter, the term "rivalry" is a bit loosely-termed given the coach's familial ties both East and Plano.
Despite being a Plano graduate and the Wildcats' current head coach, McCullough's brother Joey, currently an assistant at Plano West, played for the Panthers in the 1980s.
"It goes deeper than that with me," McCullough said. "It was a family rivalry in a way ... but as a brother, I supported Joey but still always had a deep respect for Plano Senior."
Joey was part of the infant stages of the cross-town rivalry, where signs of the matchup's back-and-forth nature instantly became evident.
First meeting in 1982, the Panthers lured Plano into a defensive struggle, possessing a 7-6 lead for much of the night until the Wildcats mustered a fourth-quarter drive to nudge back ahead, 14-7.
With eight seconds left and facing fourth-and-1, East quarterback Bobby Garrey -- father of East senior linebacker Jackson Garrey -- connected with Bill Sparks for a 24-yard touchdown to pull the Panthers within one. The upstart Panthers weren't content in settling for the tie, instead attempting a two-point conversion with Garrey rolling out and diving for the goal line, only to be marked inches short of the end zone to give Plano the 14-13 win.
"A lot of people in the stadium that night thought [Bobby] had made it," Ringo said. "Everybody on the East side thought he was in and the people on the Plano side thought he was short and ultimately the officials agreed with Plano.
"I think that was a game that Plano East fans and that community felt like they won."
It was just a sign of things to come.
The Panthers would find their way into the rivalry's win column in 1985 when they took a 21-17 decision over the Wildcats and even managed a 26-0 shutout win three years later.
Despite Plano's 3-0 start to the series, the Panthers would close the gap and even possess the overall lead for a good portion of the past decade.
Ringo entered the mix in 2004, with McCullough named head coach in 2008 after a lengthy tenure as a Wildcats assistant. In the four meetings between the two, East and Plano are 2-2 with neither team able to muster consecutive wins. It was during that stretch though, that each coach enjoyed his most memorable meeting in their time involved in the rivalry. For McCullough, the memory of 2010 lingers on after his Wildcats authored a 38-0 shutout of the Panthers while just one year later, Ringo and Company would erase a 17-0 halftime deficit to eke out a 28-24 win.
"They're all special," McCullough said. "It's a tough game to lose, but that's what makes it so exciting."
The fifth meeting between Ringo and McCullough takes place Friday in a matchup that marks the midpoint of the brief 10-5A schedule.
The Wildcats are 1-1 after splitting matchups with McKinney and McKinney Boyd while East has seen its 4-0 start to the season wither after dropping 10-5A matchups to Allen and McKinney. The Panthers are still transitioning on offense after losing senior quarterback Mario Smalls to a broken fibula, with sophomore Taylor McGehee taking the reins over the past two weeks.
"We've lost Mario but he's one guy," Ringo said. "There are 21 other guys out there who are still playing, so those guys have got to rally around Taylor."
Friday presents as close to a must-win scenario as it gets for the Panthers, while notching a second 10-5A win would do wonders for the Wildcats' playoff hopes.
"We need another win," McCullough said. "We were real close last week (a 15-14 loss to Boyd) but that doesn't matter anymore. We know we're facing a real good football team ... I have the utmost respect for Plano East and I will never be overconfident going into a game against them because anything can happen."
Similar sentiments were echoed on the East side.
"We need to win these last three," Ringo said. "Basically, we're in the same spot we were in last year where we needed to win four straight to make the playoffs after starting district 0-3.
"It's not a spot we like, but it's a huge game for us just to get that first win."
For continued news and coverage on the local sports scene, follow @MWelchSCN on Twitter.
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