BY NOLAN RUTH
X – @RealNolanRuth
MILLSAP— There were a lot of eyes on District 6-3A Division I at the beginning of the season. That buzz was renewed this week with all six teams beginning district play. That included the Millsap Bulldogs who went into their district opener with the Holliday Eagles after a shaky non-district start to the season.
It was another tough one for Millsap as Holliday cruised early and often, scoring on six of their seven first half drives compared to only two scoring drives for the Bulldogs.
“Absolutely,” head coach Jacob Johnson said when asked if his team was timid coming into the game. “That’s the worst thing you can do because you bring that on yourself. You respect your opponent, you know your opponent, but we focus on us. When we take our eyes off of us and put it on our opponent, that allows them to dictate how we do things.”
It only took two plays for the Eagles to find the end zone when Hunter Jones threw a screen pass to Ashtyn Berry who then took it 42 yards up the field. Millsap was able to respond three plays later when CR Tippie threw a deep ball to Nixon Delaune. Delaune caught the ball off of a deflection and outran the rest of the defense to get the Bulldogs on the board. However, a missed extra point kept the score at 7-6. That was the closest Millsap got.
Holliday added two more in the first quarter on a quarterback sneak by Jones, and a pass from Jones to Jaedin Kim from 11 yards out. They could have scored a third time, but Brandon Savage came up with a key interception in the end zone to prevent more damage. The first quarter came to a close with the Eagles leading 21-6.
The Millsap defense started to gain some traction in the second quarter and forced Holliday to settle for a 30-yard field goal by Tyce Whittington. The Bulldogs then put together a good drive behind the strong running of Reid Green to set up another touchdown connection between Tippie and Delaune with three and a half minutes to go in the half.
Tippie finished the night with 245 yards passing on 14 completions and three touchdowns. Delaune accounted for 129 of those yards on five catches.
However, Holliday shifted into maximum overdrive. Jones connected with Berry for a second time just 90 seconds later. Then after forcing a quick three-and-out, they drove right back down the field and scored on an 18-yard run by Steele Skinner to take a 38-12 lead into the locker room.
“We weren’t playing with confidence,” Johnson said. “Instead of expecting to make a tackle, we were hoping to make a tackle.”
The game significantly slowed down in the second half as the Eagles started rotating players. Jones connected on one more touchdown pass to Kim from 10 yards out to open the half. The Bulldogs did manage a nice drive in the third quarter but were unable to convert.
On the third play of the fourth quarter, Whittington came on for a 37-yard field goal to give Holliday a 48-12 lead. Millsap managed to go on a final drive that covered 72 yards on seven plays and was capped off by the third touchdown connection from Tippie to Delaune to bring the final score to 48-20.
Millsap (2-4, 0-1) will get another tough test next week when they play host to Jacksboro (4-2, 0-1) who lost to Wichita Falls City View on Friday. Meanwhile, Holliday (4-2, 1-0) will return home to face Valley View (1-5, 0-1) next Friday.
