The Aledo Bearcats booked a return trip to the UIL 5A Division 1 state championship game by smothering Forney, 43-7, Friday at Midlothian ISD Stadium.
The Bearcats defense shut down Forney’s high-powered offense while showing the offense had more than enough weapons with running back Raycine Guillory out with an injury. The Bearcats rushed for 370 yards while holding Forney to 76 rushing yards. Forney’s Javian Osborne came into the game having rushed for 2,183 yards and 38 touchdowns on the season. However, Aledo held him to 48 yards on 13 carries. He got nearly half of those rushing yards on his 22-yard TD run in the second quarter.
In addition to shutting down the Forney rushing attack, Aledo intercepted Forney quarterback Kyle Crawford three times.
Aledo (15-0) will be trying to win its fifth state title in six years and extend its state record to 12 state titles when it plays Smithson Valley in the championship game at 7 p.m. next Friday at AT&T Stadium.
Hawk Patrick-Daniels, last year’s starting running back, moved back to the backfield and finished with 203 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Aledo’s Swiss Army Knife, 4-star linebacker Davhon Keys, scored four rushing touchdowns in his role as a red-zone wildcat running back. He also lined up several times as a traditional running back and his 16-yard touchdown run came after he took a handoff then ran over a defender as he got close to the end zone.
“We have a lot of players who can do it all,” Keys said. “We have receivers who go down on kickoffs and make big tackles. We have safeties that go in at receivers and make big plays. No one is selfish on this team and that’s really hard to find.”
Besides his four touchdown runs (from 1, 6, 1 and 16 yards), Keys blocked and recovered a Jackrabbit punt and led the defense that held Forney 38 points below their scoring average.
The Aledo defense forced Forney to go three-and-out on each of it’s first two possessions.
After Forney’s first punt, Aledo took over at the Forney 46. It took just 4 offense plays for Aledo to score. The big play was a 25-yard run by quarterback Hauss Herny, then Pactrick-Daniels scored on a 16 hard run. Aledo then quickly lined up in the swinging-gate formation and Hejny ran in the two-point conversion for an 8-0 lead with 9:23 left in the first quarter.
After Forney’s second three-and-out, Keys blocked the Jackrabbit punt and recovered the ball at the 22-yard-line. Hejny threw a 21-yard pass to Tyson Timms, then Keys got his first 1-yard TD run to make it 15-0 with 6:55 left in the first quarter.
Keys had a 6-yard TD run out the wildcat formation with 5:58 left in the first half to make it 22-0. Forney, with the help of a pair of Aledo penalties, drove for their lone touchdown just before the half. Osborne finished off the drive with his 22-yard TD.
Aledo got the ball to start the second half and quickly built it lead. The Bearcats drove 75-yards on that first possession of the second half, with a Hejny 45-yard pass to Timms setting up Key’s third TD. Keys, out of the wildcat, jumped over the top of the pile for a 1-yard run to make it 29-7 with 8:30 left in the third quarter.
Forney fumbled the ball away on the kick return and Jake Gillespie recovered to give the Bearcats the ball at the Forney 29. Patrick-Daniels finished that drive with a 5-yard run give Aledo a 36-7 lead with 6:22 left in the third quarter.
Patrick-Daniels had a 42-yard run to put the ball at the Forney 16. Keys came in to give Patrick-Daniels a breather after the long run and he took a handoff to the left and got all the way to the goal-line where he ran over a Forney defender to score his fourth TD. Aledo led 43-7 with 11:05 left in the game and reserves played for most of the rest of the game.
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