Aledo not looking ahead; Bearcats thrash Saginaw in bi-district round

ALEDO

How hard will it be for the top-ranked Aledo football team to not look ahead to a rematch with No. 4 Denton Ryan? Everyone outside of the Bearcats locker room is talking about the likely clash in the state quarterfinals…three more weeks away.

But everyone inside the Aledo locker room is focused on the task at hand, although Ryan does linger in the back of most of their minds. The Bearcats started the Class 5A Division I bi-district round by jumping on Saginaw from the start en route to an 80-12 romp over the Rough Riders on Thursday night at Buchanan Stadium.

Aledo (11-0), ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 5A DI according to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, will move on to the area round and focus on the winner of the Amarillo Tascosa (6-4)-El Paso Parkland (3-7) game that is being played in Amarillo on Friday night.

“We’ve got to take it week by week and prepare for each opponent as hard as we can and as much as we can,” said Aledo quarterback Lincoln Tubbs who finished with 194 yards passing completing 10 of 15 and rushing for 57 more yards on 5 carries. “But we definitely have that in the back of our minds and we’re definitely ready for it.”

Very little went right in the first half for Saginaw (7-4), the fourth-place team out of District 4-5A DI. The Rough Riders were forced to punt on their first possession and Aledo’s Lamel Swanson looked to have returned the kick 47 yards for a touchdown, but a holding penalty nullified the play.

Starting at the Saginaw 23, it took the Bearcats four plays to take the lead when Kaden Winkfield bulled over right guard for a 7-0 lead with 8:25 left in the first quarter.

Aledo went on to score TDs on 6 of its next 7 drives to take a 49-6 lead at the break. Winkfield added scoring runs of 14 and 3 yards with the latter coming with no time left on the clock in the second quarter.

Backfield mate Brady Powell had 3 rushing scores of his own from 13, 16 and 9 yards. Quarterback Lincoln Tubbs tossed a slip screen to Kaydon Finley who raced 67 yards to pay dirt with 1:41 left before halftime.

Aledo dominated the trenches on both sides of the ball. Saginaw’s only bright spot in the first half was a 98-yard bomb down the right hash from quarterback Joshua Greek to Kaiden Stewart.

Out side of the 98-yard play, the Rough Riders managed only 58 yards of total offense against Aledo, including minus-12 on the ground on 15 carries.

“We can’t take any team lightly,” said Aledo defensive lineman Tymon Meeks, who dominated inside for the Bearcats. “We have to prepare for any team the same way as if we were going to play Denton Ryan or Denton Guyer. A team like Ryan is always on our mind, but it has to be controlled and not out of whack.

“We have to take it one week at a time, but with that, hopefully we’ll see them in the playoffs.”

The Bearcats are very aware of what happened last year when Aledo defeated Ryan in the regular season, but lost to them in the playoffs to end their season.

“I believe we know we’ll probably see them late in the playoffs,” said Aledo junior safety Cooper Hull, who had one of the Bearcats’ two interceptions on the night. “We know that when we get there we’ll have had all of the work that we put in since the start of January until now under our belts and when we play them we’ll be ready. We’re looking to go to state.”

After Tubbs and Finley connected on an 11-yard scoring pass to start the third quarter, making it 56-6, the Bearcats’ reserves took over to finish the game. Reserve running back Jeremiah Johnson actually led Aledo in rushing with 100 yards on 6 carries with TDs of 11 and 42 yards.

Winkfield finished with 84 yards on 11 carries and Powell picked up 98 yards on 6 totes. Finley had 6 receptions for 141 yards for the Bearcats.

Greek went 21 of 36 for 258 yards for Saginaw with his favorite target being Stewart who had 8 catches for 179 yards.

“When you have a big offensive line that’s physical, like we do, they’re going to create holes,” said Aledo coach Robby Jones, whose team rushed 48 times for 486 yards and finished with 680 total yards. “Our defensive line has been doing that all season, making quarterbacks uncomfortable in the pocket and I thought that they did that again tonight.”

Jones isn’t worried about his team looking ahead to Ryan saying that his team will not be thinking about them until they get to that point. His concern right now is Tascosa, a team heavily favored over Parkland, that runs a flex bone, triple option offense that can create havoc for opposing defenses.

“Tascosa brings a whole new challenge for us if we play them,” said Jones. “They run an offense that you just don’t see much anymore. You might not see it during the whole season and then you have to get ready for it in the playoffs.

“It will take all week to prepare for it and what’s tough is being able to get a scout team to give our defense a good look in practice.”