Anna blanks Chapel Hill for first Texas high school football title: 'They made it tough on us all night'
ARLINGTON, TEXAS - It turns out going against a state-championship-caliber offense every week in practice provides plenty of preparation.
The Anna defense secured its fourth shutout of the season and did so on the biggest stage — a 26-0 blanking of Tyler Chapel Hill on Friday in the Texas high school Class 4A Division I championship football game at AT&T Stadium.
Facing a Bulldogs’ offense that had scored 50 or more points in 7 of 15 games entering the finals, the Coyotes posted a shutout.
It marked only the third time in the past five years that Chapel Hill left a field with a 0 on the board.
“Everyone always says air raid offenses can’t win championships because they have no defense," Anna head coach Seth Parr. "I’d like to say we just proved that theory wrong,”
The Coyotes held Chapel Hill to only 206 yards of total offense. In the first half, they were just downright stingy.
Chapel Hill ran 23 plays and had 19 yards of total offense.
The Coyotes' offense accounted for four scores in the first half and then a safety with 36 seconds left capped off a 36-point first half for Anna (15-1).
“We made a lot of mistakes, a lot of execution things,” Chapel Hill coach Jeff Riordan said. “We didn’t play our best football tonight. That was an unbelievable football team …well-coached. They are solid on defense. They made it tough on us all night. Every time we got something going something would happen and we would get behind the sticks. No football team is good from playing behind the sticks. That hurt us offensively.”
Anna defensive coordinator Efrain Ramos drew up a defense that forced a fumble, a turnover on downs, four punts and the safety on a tackle in the end zone on a running play.
Twelve different times, the Bulldogs were stopped for a loss carrying the ball — losing 45 yards.
Rickey Stewart, who had 2,797 yards and 40 touchdowns heading into the game, was held to 66 yards on 14 totes. He was averaging 186 yards per game.
The Bulldogs' other standout back was Demetrius Brisbon Jr., who had a 110-yards-per-game average and 1,664 yards on the ground. He tallied 35 yards on 11 carries.
“Coach Ramos gave us a game plan to go after them and not let the foot off the pedal,” said Anna safety Jamison Adams, who had five tackles. “We had envisioned all week and this was the only thing we preached was to get a shutout and nothing else.”
Linebacker CJ Miller was named the defensive MVP of the game. An all-state linebacker and all-state wrestler last season, he had 15 tackles and 1 1/2 tackles for loss.
Fellow linebacker Abram Greer had 10 stops, while linebacker Grayson Stewart had 2 1/2 tackles — a team-high — to go with 9 tackles.
“They have very good offensive players and we have a lot of respect for them,” Parr said of the Chapel Hill offense. “But (our defense) go against the west offensive players every day in practice and we feel we do a great job of making sure we beat them on a daily basis on the offensive side. We ended Wednesday's practice with a championship.”
Adams, then chimed in, “We got Thursday.”
They also got the one on Friday.
-- Cody Thorn | @sblivetx
All photos by Tommy Hays.
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