CALDWELL—Making their first trip to the post-season since 2018, Milano’s voyage was cut short after falling to Burton, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine’s second-ranked team in Class 2A-II, 46-0.
Going up against the highly-touted Panthers, the Eagles put up a fight for much of the opening quarter. Things changed after Delvin Gantt scored on a oneyard run with 11 seconds left on the clock in the first and Burton seemed to never look back. Gantt went on to score four unanswered touchdowns in the second to give the District 14-2A-II champion a 33-0 advantage at halftime. He made his way to the end zone once in the third as well as Tyrone Gilmon, who punched in a 21-yard TD run with less than two minutes to play in the quarter. With injuries throughout the game to Milano’s leading rusher Josh Millar and Gabe Sanders, a sophomore who hardly leaves the field, the Eagles never quite had the chance to bounce back. Despite the less than ideal outcome, second-year head coach Nick Morehead was proud of his team and what they accomplished throughout the s eason. Starting this fall off with a bang, the Eagles won their first six games by a combined score of 254-55. After that, the Eagles encountered a difficult stretch, tasked with playing three consecutive games against teams that were ranked or had been ranked at some point during the 2022 season.
On Oct. 21, MHS stayed close with perennial power Bremond. MHS hung with the Tigers for much of the first half before leading rusher Josh Millar came down with an injury that kept him out for the remainder of their district slate. MHS struggled to score in the second half that evening and received their first loss, 36-21. In the week after that battle in Falls County, Milano fell to Granger, who ended district play ranked eighth in Class 2A-II and lost to Chilton in their 13-2A-II finale, the state’s fifth-ranked team.
“We started out 6-0, something that hasn’t been done in a while,” Morehead told The Reporter after the game. “But we ran into some really good teams.”
“I wouldn’t say we played bad down the stretch, we just had some key injuries and a lot of our guys were playing hurt,” he added. “They toughed it out, but at the end of the day, the last four teams we played were in the top 10 and that’s rough.”
Morehead, a Rockdale High School grad that has been in Milano since 2014, also talked about his team’s mentality leading up to their first-round matchup with Burton.
“We were going to play hard and play physical,” he said. “That’s what we do.”
He also talked highly of his seniors and noted how much they improved during the last four years. Morehead also spoke of how they helped some of the younger players on the team improve.
STATS— Ethan Gordon led the team in rushing with 99 yard on 15 carries. Millar was the team’s leading rusher on the season, with 994 yards on 70 carries.
FUTURE— Although the Eagles will lose players like Millar, Gordon and quarterback Chris Vasquez, the group has many players returning to the field next season. This includes Sanders and fellow sophomore Andres Ruelas, a two-year starter who rushed for nearly 1,000 yards. Junior Edison Bui will also be back for Milano, a defensive player who combined for 55 total tackles this year.
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