Saginaw’s incredible second-half rally stuns Paschal to keep district title hopes alive

In 19 seasons of playing varsity football, Saginaw had never started a season 7-0...until now. In fact, the Rough Riders had only won three games in the four previous seasons combined.

Things looked bleak early for Saginaw, but the Rough Riders rallied for 26 unanswered points in the second half to stun Fort Worth Paschal 39-31 on Oct. 18 in a high school football game that might well decide the District 4-5A Division 1 title.

Trailing 31-13 and getting pounded by the Paschal offense in the first half, Saginaw (7-0 overall, 5-0 district) was on the ropes after an interception by Panthers’ safety Noah Dillon gave Paschal the ball at the Panthers’ 49.

Paschal (5-2, 4-1), which hasn’t made a playoff appearance since 1995, drove to the Saginaw three yard line and on first and goal a shuffle pass was caught, fumbled, and scooped up by Rough Rider defensive back Boaz Kaloso and returned 53 yards to the Paschal 47. That’s when things began to turn Saginaw’s way.

“You know, for the first time in a long time we just went in at the half and sat everybody down and just talked about doing your job and to just try to get back in the game,” said Saginaw coach Mike Peters. “Some things started to bounce our way in the second half and we capitalized. It was a fantastic comeback.”

It took 10 plays for the Rough Riders to cover the 47 yards. Quarterback Roman Morales tossed the third of his four touchdown passes on the night to Corey Baker from 11 yards out to cut Paschal’s lead to 31-19 with 6:33 left in the third quarter.

Morales finished with 247 passing yards completing 18 of 27 throws and rushed 15 times for 52 yards.

Paschal, which had 237 rushing yards and 312 total yards in the first half, just couldn’t get anything going after the intermission. The Panthers only had 60 rushing yards in the second half and 78 total yards. Following a three and out by Paschal, the Rough Riders went on the march again.

Morales hit passes of 16, 29 and seven yards on the march with the latter being a scoring pass to Kaloso in the back of the end zone to cut the lead to 31-25 with 3:08 left in the third quarter.

After missing a lot of tackles and getting pushed around by the Paschal offensive line in the first half, the Saginaw defense played lights out after the break. Defensive end Isaac Bukasa gave Saginaw the lead back when Malik McCoy tackled Paschal’s quarterback in the end zone, jarring the ball loose where Bukasa recovered it for a TD to make it 32-31 with 11:14 remaining.

“Magic does happen,” said Bukasa of the comeback win. “At the half our coaches just said that we were giving up too much and for us to bounce back and get back in the game.

“This win really means a lot because people would look down on us after having so few wins over the past few years. We worked really hard during the off season and over the summer and it’s really paid off.”

With 3:15 left in the game Jaivean Goff got a 46-yard pick six to give Saginaw a 39-31 cushion.

“We were in nickle coverage and my coach moved me to safety and told me to stay back,” said Goff of the pick six. “I saw him throw that ball and I picked it, stepped on a dude, broke a tackle and got in the end zone.

“At the half our coaches were telling us to just not give up and show some effort and play our hearts out. We only have two wins in the two years I’ve been here so winning this is a miracle.”

Saginaw started quickly. The Rough Riders forced Paschal to punt on the Panthers’ first series and it took Saginaw just four plays to take an early lead.

Aidan Collier was wide open over the middle and Morales found him in stride for a 31-yard score to give the Rough Riders a 7-0 lead with 9:20 left in the first quarter.

But Paschal rallied, scoring on its next five possessions, behind an offensive line of Jordan Hernandez, Jackson Hailey, VonDerrick Hughes, Luke Bozarth and Jesse Vasquez that dominated the line of scrimmage allowing the Panthers to run at will. Josh Wedemyer got things started with a 38-yard field goal to cut the lead to 7-3.

Paschal quarterback Jashaun Thomas had an 11-yard scoring run and Marquez Dean ran it in from 15 yards out to make it 17-7 Paschal with 8:29 left in the second quarter.

Morales stopped the bleeding momentarily with a 34-yard scoring pass to Collier to cut the lead to 17-13, but Thomas added scoring runs of seven and five yards to make it 31-13 at the half.

The Panthers almost had a trio of 100 yard rushers as Dean finished with 110 yards on 16 carries, Thomas had 18 totes for 94 yards and Maki Gee carried 12 times for 94 yards.

Paschal still has a pair of tough games remaining on its schedule against Fort Worth Wyatt and Fort Worth Arlington Heights, but the Panthers should be able to get in the tournament for the first time since 1995.

Saginaw has a chance to run the table with games against Fort Worth North Side, Fort Worth South Hills and Fort Worth Chisholm Trail. If the Rough Riders take care of North Side and South Hills, as expected, even a loss to Chisholm Trail would assure Saginaw at least a share of its first district title in school history.