The Rockdale Tigers laid claim to being the best team in Class 3A with a state championship. Now, the players who led them to the summit are being rewarded.
No less than six Tigers were named to the 67th Texas Sportswriters Association Class 3A All-State team.
The TSWA team considers the entire season rather than just the 10 regular season games.
Five of the six players were voted onto the first-team, while Torry Locklin was chosen as Class 3A player of the year and Jeff Miller was the Class 3A Coach of the year.
The six players equals the number of All-State players from the 1976 state championship team.
Joining Locklin on the first team was utility athlete Jaqualyn Crawford, tight end Tyler Lehmkuhl, linebacker Jr. Harris and defensive lineman Cayden McBride.
Linebacker Dylan David was chosen second team.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Locklin was the unanimous choice for the Class 3A player of the year after his performance in the state championship game in which he was named the most valuable player on offense.
He was named the MVP after collecting 458 total yards and four touchdowns.
Locklin—who signed with Kansas—established new school standards in total offense (5,051) and rushing (2,491) in 2017.
He accounted for 59 touchdowns, including 32 on the ground.
Rockdale has never had a player named the player of the year.
The multi-faceted Crawford was chosen as the utility player.
Despite missing three games with a shoulder injury and a question whether Crawford would even be physically able to play in 2017, the Oklahoma signee still put up some impressive numbers.
The 5-foot-9, 170-pound speedster snagged 57 passes for 780 yards and also rushed for 715 yards.
He accounted for 23 touchdowns.
His 58 career touchdowns is a school record.
After kicking an extra point against Jarrell, Crawford has scored in seven different ways you can score a point in football.
A starter at cornerback, Crawford was named the defensive player of the game in the state championship with four tackles and a key forced fumble.
Crawford was a second-team selection in 2016.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Lehmkuhl is coming off a terrific year in which he led the Tigers in receiving yards with 915 and 10 touchdowns with several clutch catches.
The 6-foot, 200-pound Harris also missed some time early in the season, but was still a force to be reckoned with, with 152 tackles with 30 going for a loss.
The relentless linebacker sparked the Tigers by blocking five punts on the season, including three versus Woodville in the playoffs. He returned two of the blocks for touchdowns.
Harris was the District 10-3A defensive player of the year.
The hard-nosed junior McBride collected 98 tackles with 18 of those going for a loss from his nose-guard position.
David led the Tigers in tackles this past season with 183 stops.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound David is third on the school’s all-time tackles list with 408.
David was a third-team pick in 2016 and is the fourth member of the David family to be named to an All-State team.
Miller guided the Tigers to the state championship in his 12th season at Rockdale.
Miller has posted 126 wins in 18 years as a head coach, including a school-record 91 at Rockdale.
He was also named the coach of the year by the Dallas/Fort Worth 1st Down Club, which included all classifications.
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