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Eagles’ RB too much for La Villa
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FLORESVILLE - Junction boys?
No, Saturday they played more like Junction men.
In as dominating a secondround playoff performance as you’ll likely find, the Junction Eagles advanced to the UIL Class 1A state football quarterfinals by routing La Villa 51-12 in a game that wasn’t even that close.
Many of the Eagles’ starters were out even before the fourth quarter started, including superstar running back Dustin Stapp, who ran for 356 yards and six touchdowns on just 17 carries.
He only had two touches in the second half.
He took them for touchdowns of 60 and 90 yards.
“ Very impressive,” said Junction head coach Cory Spivey. “ That’s a tribute to that offensive line. Great blocking by (fullback) Kyle Wimberly to really open up the holes for Dustin.”
His blockers were so dominating, Stapp said, that it was easy.
“ I’ve never seen holes like that before,” Stapp said, who came into the game as one of the state’s rushing leaders with 1,989 yards. “ I saw grass everywhere. I could have run wherever I wanted to.”
The win for Junction ( 9- 3) sets up a matchup between the Eagles and Shiner ( 9-1), which beat Goldthwaite 33-7 Friday night.
The time and location of that matchup were still being discussed Saturday night.
Several Shiner coaches attended Saturday’s game, but none seemed to be smiling very much as Junction turned in big play after big play.
The Eagles dominated even though they attempted just four passes and completed one.
La Villa ( 8- 4) had come into this one with a distinct size advantage on the offensive and defensive lines, but it was Junction that clearly won the battle of the trenches.
“ We couldn’t stop Stapp,” said La Villa head coach Eugenio Garza. “ They just kept running the same play offtackle, and we didn’t have an answer for it.”
The Junction defense, meanwhile, had an answer for almost everything La Villa tried to do.
The Cardinals only managed 172 yards of total offense, but 84 of that came on a late fourth- quarter scoring drive when the game was already out of hand.
They had just 36 yards at halftime.
Twelve times, the Eagles tackled Cardinals ballcarriers for losses, and Wimberly, Rafael Fuentes and Alec Menchaca all intercepted La Villa passes.
Junction’s Ashton Thomas set the tone for this game early.
Af ter the Eagles had stopped La Villa on its first possession of the game, the Cardinals punted. Thomas caught the punt and motored 64 yards for a touchdown.
“ I just caught it, saw a big hole, and took off,” Thomas said.
Wimberly then tossed the ensuing two- point conversion to Cole Sandlin on a busted extra- point attempt, and suddenly Junction had an 8- 0 lead.
Besides those eight points and the six Stapp touchdowns ( and Thomas extra point kicks), the only other score Junction had was on a safety when nearly half the Eagles’ defense converged on La Villa quarterback Joey Felix in the end zone.
Felix threw a pair of touchdown passes (to Gabriel Ortiz and Sammy Cantu), but those were two of the rare bright spots for the Cardinals.
It was a dominating, celebratory day all around for the Eagles.
“ It was ridiculously fun,” Stapp said.
“ We were just all pumped and jumping around on the sideline,” Thomas said. “ We were hollering at each other and just having a good time.”
The Eagles certainly don’t look like a team that hadn’t been in the playoffs since 2003.
“ I think we’ve stepped up our level of play since the playoffs started,” said Spivey, whose team knocked off Brackettville 36-13 last week. “ I think we’re peaking at the right time of year. We’re going to keep trying to get better every week and see how far we can take this thing.”
So far, so good.
“ This is the quarterfinal round boys,” Spivey told his players as they gathered around him after the game. “ There’s only eight teams left.”
This playoff march is certainly special for the Eagles and their fans, but especially so for Spivey.
Even though he’s in his first year as head coach, his father, Lynn, was the Junction head coach in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Spivey went to school in Junction from his kindergarten through eighth grade
year. Now he’s back in his boyhood home leading Junction to postseason glory.
“ It’s pretty special to come back here and do this,” Spivey said.
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