Rockdale’s six-game winning streak and undefeated season came to end Friday night in Troy after being unable to outlast the running game and defense of the Trojans, losing 62-44.
To RHS football coach Jeff Miller, it was a game that taught the top-ranked Tigers a lot about where they stand half-way through district play.
“We hadn’t had a real battle,” Miller said. “We were just sitting there winning with so much ease and we didn’t really identify our weaknesses.
“It takes something like this to happen before you realize that what you were doing wasn’t going to enable you to have the success you want. I think that was the beauty of this game, we learned stuff about ourselves, but it wasn’t in a game that cost us anything. We wanted to win a district championship, but all the rest of our goals are still attainable.
GAME–On Rockdale’s first drive, the blue-and-gold ran 11 plays and had three first downs before Valdez took the snap on fourth down from the two-yard line where he first faked right before going left and jumping over a lunging Trey Keilars. When the ball kissed the goal line for their first points of the night. Ross Loth made PAT after to give Rockdale a 7-0 lead with 7:50 left in the first quarter.
Thanks to Zach Hrabacek, the Trojans also got off to a big start. The three-year letterman got THS in scoring position after returning their opening kickoff to the Rockdale 26-yard line for 49 yards. Five plays later, quarterback Ben Pressley saw Sam Jones in the end zone for a goal line pass. Pressley also made the PAT to tie the game at seven with 5:49 left in the first.
Following Troy’s first points the Tigers had another long series with 1o plays fueled by three consecutive first downs that ultimately led to a 23-yard Jace Robinson pass to Kesean Raven in the endzone.
The Tigers forced Troy to punt on their next possession, but the Trojan defense did the same.
Troy tied the game at 14 thanks to a breakaway 42-yard TD run by Hrabacek.
Every time Rockdale scored, THS answered back for the remainder of the quarter and both teams went into halftime tied at 28.
Things changed in the second half, with a 17-yard TD by Jones at the 10:10 mark. Valdez answered back, scoring on a 71-yard run almost four minutes later but the PAT failed and Troy led 35-34.
The Trojans went ahead 42-34 when they converted a fourth-and-nine into another Jones touchdown.
RHS then had their longest drive of the game with 13 plays but were held to a 25-yard field goal by Loth to make the game 42-37.
Five plays later, Jones got the Trojans back in the end zone with a 42-yard run to put the Bell County squad up 49-37. Rock-dale was unable to score on their next to drives and Hrabacek put the game away for Troy with a 17-yard touchdown with a little less than seven minutes to go in the fourth. Each team would score once more and Troy held on to win 62-44.
Hrabacek had 243 yards and three touchdowns. Miller knew the Trojans’ junior running back would get his yards, but what wasn’t anticipated was that Xavier Hernandez and Sam Jones would both rush for over 100 yards with 132 and 114 on the ground for a team total of 491 yards.
“We had trouble slowing all of them down,” Miller said. “(Hrabacek) wasn’t the only one.
“He’s a really good football player and we knew that. We thought we had a plan, but they executed better than we did.”
The Trojans also held possession for 31 minutes and 50 seconds, almost double Rockdale’s possession time of 16 minutes and 10 seconds. On defense, it was Jones and fellow senior linebacker Beau Workman that held Rockdale’s net running game to 196 yards. Cam’Ron Valdez had another huge game finishing the night with 210 yards on 28 carries for four touchdowns.
“I’ve been worried about the fact we haven’t had that much resistance this year and wondered how we were going to respond to it,” Miller said. “Obviously, we didn’t respond in a way that I had hoped.”
With a 2-1 and three more district games, the Tigers host the Cameron Yoemen in the 65th annual Battle of the Bell on Friday at 7:30 p.m. For more information, read the story on 1B titled Bell game huge for both teams.
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