Euless Trinity’s final drive fizzles as Allen narrowly escapes in a Class 6A D1 Regional

Euless Trinity was in position to take down Allen in a Class 6A Division 1 Regional on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 29. The Trojans got the ball back with over five minutes left, but the Eagles defense stepped up and Trinity couldn’t recover from a key penalty as Allen held on for a 22-21 win at Dragon Stadium.

Allen (13-0) will advance to the state quarterfinals and a date with either North Crowley (12-0) or Coppell (12-0). North Crowley and Coppell will play at 2 p.m. on Nov. 30 at Newsom Stadium in Mansfield.

“It was two storied programs and two really good football teams going at it,” said Allen coach Lee Wiginton. “It’s the first time that I’ve gotten to coach against a Trinity team and it was fun. It was fun to prepare for and fun to coach against them.

“I love the way that they play football over there at Trinity, but I love the way we play a little bit more.”

Trinity (11-2) took over at its own 19 with 5:26 remaining in the game after forcing Allen to punt for its first and only time in the contest. The Trojans moved out to their own 48, but then disaster struck.

Quarterback T.J. Tupou was sacked for a nine-yard loss by Allen’s Braylend Rodriquez and on the play the Trojans were flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that pushed the ball back to the 24. On the ensuing play, Tupou was sacked again for a five-yard loss by linebacker Hova Wilford and Trinity could do nothing but punt facing a fourth and 36 from its 19 yard line.

The punt was almost blocked and the Eagles took over at the Trinity 43 with 2:15 left. But the Trojans never got the ball back as Allen picked up two first downs allowing the Eagles to run out the clock.

“They just made one more play than we did,” said Trinity coach Aaron Lineweaver. “Two really good programs and I’m just really proud of the fight we had, but we just came up a little short.”

Trinity never led in the game, but took the opening kickoff of the second half and marched 75 yards in 14 plays to pull to within 22-21 with 4:52 left in the third quarter. Ethan Wright did the honors out of the Wildcat formation for Trinity, running around left end for the score.

But after Trinity took over seven minutes off the third-quarter clock, Allen answered running 14 plays of its own, driving to the Trinity 19 where the drive stalled. A 40-yard field goal attempt by the Eagles was wide left, however, and Trinity took over at the Trojans 23 with 10:48 left in the game.

Trinity got a first down and moved it out to the 41, but a six-yard loss on third down killed the drive with 8:07 left. The Trojans defense stepped up though and Allen went three and out, with a holding penalty mixed in, and had to punt setting up Trinity’s final drive.

Allen’s defense did a terrific job of bottling up the vaunted Trinity running game. The Trojans only had 138 yards rushing on 43 carries (3.21 yards/carry) in the game and managed a mere 211 yards of total offense.

“This is a tough team to prepare for,” said Wiginton of Trinity’s high-powered rushing attack. “I felt like we had a good plan, but you can’t simulate what they do. You can’t simuate the size and how they do it so there was a lot of uncertainty going into this game, probably about as much as I’ve had in my whole career.”

But despite that, Trinity was never out of the game. Things did look bleak for the Trojans when Allen took a 22-7 lead with 7:02 left in the first half on a two-yard run by Jaden Hambric.

But Trinity answered late in the second quarter with a nine-play, 75 yard scoring drive. Running back Josh Bell, who led Trinity with 114 yards rushing on 27 carries, had seven carries on the drive for 23 yards and set up a 14-yards scoring run by Tupou that cut the lead to 22-14 with 2:26 left in the second quarter.

Wiginton said that it was important for his team to get off to a good start and jump on Trinity early, and the Eagles did just that.

Allen took the opening kickoff off the game and moved right down the field on Trinity. The Eagles ran 10 plays to cover the 65 yards, led by quarterback Brady Bricker, who managed the offense expertly the entire night.

Bricker scored on a perfect zone read, running right up the middle of the Trinity defense for a 12-yard TD. What turned out to be the difference in the game came when Josyah Johnson ran in the two-point conversion to give Allen an 8-0 lead with 8:57 left in the first quarter.

“This has been a really big rivalry the past few years and even going back and we’ve battled back and forth,” said Bricker, a senior. “This year we came out, executed and just did what we had to do to win.”

Trinity was forced to punt on its first series, but a gamble by Allen gave the Trojans the ball back in good field position. The Eagles went for a fourth-and-one from its own 34, but Donnell Gee was stuffed by Trinity’s Joshua Withers and Randolph Rogers for no gain, turning the ball over on downs.

Trinity took advantage of the short field and scored five plays later on an 18-yard run around left end by Bell with 1:16 left in the first quarter that cut the lead to 8-7.

The Eagles came right back, however. Micah Ellis, who led Allen with 83 yards rushing on 11 carries, broke free for a 37-yard gain on the first play of the drive. Five plays later Bricker ran another well executed zone read, again up the middle, for an 11-yard touchdown on the third play of the second quarter to make it 15-7.

Bricker finished with 137 passing yards completing 15 of 22 passes and had 80 rushing yards on 11 carries. Gee was his favorite target catching seven passes for 51 yards.

“These seniors are such great kids,” said Lineweaver. “They’ve been through some tough times and they stuck together, stuck with me and with these coaches. They’re a great group of kids and they’re going to do great things in the future, whatever they decide to do, because they’re just high character kids.”