by Kirk Dooley
The Scots are putting their eight-game winning streak on the line this Friday as the 3-6 Wylie East Raiders roll into Highlander Stadium for Senior Night. Before the game, all the seniors on the team will be introduced. Bring your stadium seat because there’ll be more than five dozen Scots honored. There’s a special place in heaven for the seniors who are Highland Park student athletic trainers – Clark Turner, Andie Criswell, Sadie Mayo and Ashiyana Dahiya – who have each unselfishly served the team for several years.
Concluding the season with Wylie East brings back the memory of the Raiders win over the Scots in 2016 that shook the Park Cities like an earthquake. A promising HP team suddenly didn’t look like a playoff contender anymore.
“It was a big disappointment,” said Coach Allen. “But the next morning we gathered the team together and started preparing for our new season – the playoffs. We put our record behind us and used the Wylie East loss to refocus. We dedicated ourselves to never play below our abilities again, to have a chip on our shoulders and to create a goal of winning six playoffs games including the state finals.”
Well, it worked. The Scots were foaming at the mouth and obliterated their first-round playoff opponent, Mount Pleasant, 70-2. The Scots then rolled through the playoffs and won the state championship.
I’ve never seen high school players react to a convincing loss and reinvent themselves like the 2016 team did. My money says no Wylie East loss, no state championship. That loss woke them up like a cold shower.
But that was then and now is now. In 2016 the Raiders had a machine named Eno Benjamin who ran for 186 yards. This year the man to stop is quarterback Terrell Washington, Jr. who takes the snap as the QB then runs most of the time. He’s already got more than 1,000 yards on the ground.
In last week’s 60-28 win over West Mesquite the Wranglers – who will finish in last place in the district – gained 595 total yards against the Scots. Their top receiver, T.J. Turner, caught eight passes for 311 yards. West Mesquite also picked up over 200 yards on the ground. So while the Scots are ranked third in the state, there is still room for improvement. Especially against serious playoff competition.
There were two developments in last week’s game that had probably never happened before in the history of Highland Park football. First, the Scots scored four consecutive points … on a blocked PAT returned the length of the field by Blake Bevans, then minutes later the HP defense got a safety. Four points the hard way.
The second unusual stat is that during a one-minute aerial battle, both teams combined for four touchdowns in four plays from scrimmage. There were 28 points scored in less than a minute. That has got to be a first in Scots history.
This Friday Highland Park will need to take care of business against Wylie East. Once the game is over, the HP coaches will be tripping over each other to see who won the Denton Ryan – Frisco Lone Star game. Or more specifically, who lost.
The Scots could see one of them in the third round and the other one in the fourth round. Pick your poison.