Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers won their season opening game against Fort Worth THESA on Friday night at home with little drama, but a bit of frustration.
The Panthers won 68-44, but could not put the Riders away to end the game early despite starting out the game on fire.
Saint Jo comes into the season with a lot of the same players from last year’s team that went 6-5. One big difference is Coach CJ Hantz and his staff coming in and trying to shape the experienced team in a tougher model.
Saint Jo nearly put THESA away, up 40-6 at one point. Unfortunately, Hantz thought his team got lazy and allowed the Riders to get back in the game, outscoring the Panthers 38-28 the rest of the game.
“We jumped out on them real good,” Hantz said. “Then we just got flat and complacent. Nothing much else to it.”
It was not enough to come back, but for a game that looked like it was going to end early, for it to last all four quarters put a downer on the win for Saint Jo.
Lee Yeley powered Saint Jo, scoring eight of the team’s 10 touchdown on the night. Yeley rushed for 109 yards and scored four touchdowns. He caught seven passes for 144 yards and three touchdowns. On defense he scooped up a fumble and returned it for another score.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Longhorns had a great opening game of the season, beating Savoy at home easily after a delay to start the game due to lightning.
The Longhorns won 54-19, which was a good thing to start the season for a team that has a lot of young players at the beginning of the season.
Forestburg comes into the season with a mixture of experienced seniors it can lean on and freshman it will have to rely on if it wants a full team lineup.
The Longhorns jumped on the Cardinals early, getting a lot of success from its passing game with senior quarterback Jesus Sanchez.
Sanchez found Hayden Lawson and Kyler Willett for touchdowns of eight and 38 yards to put Forestburg up 12-0 in the first quarter.
After Savoy cut the lead to 12-6 in the second quarter, the Longhorns saw Sanchez and Willett connect on back-to-back 27-yard touchdown passes. Forestburg led 26-6 at halftime.
Keagan Willett saw some success on the ground, getting loose for 48-yard touchdown run to start the third quarter.
On defense Sanchez then intercepted a pass and returned it 48 yards for a touchdown and then recovered a fumble and returned it 19 yards for another score on back-to-back drives.
Forestburg led 46-6.
With the game pretty secure, Coach Greg Roller decided to start mixing in all of his players into the game to get the inexperienced freshman some playing time. This might have prevented the Longhorns from putting the Cardinals away by mercy rule, but in a way the experience gained by playing out the rest of the second half was valuable.
Savoy scored twice more in the game while Keagan Willett again scored on another long run, this one 52 yards.
It made the final score 54-19.

Nocona
The Nocona Indians had a tough opening game on Friday against Lindsay where little went right.
The Knights let the Indians have it 47-6 on their home field as Nocona tries to grow from the experience.
The Indians come into the season with their quarterback situation needing time to get comfortable as Jayce Lehde is only a sophomore and Logan Gaston a freshman.
Lindsay was coming off a 5-6 season and looked to only be better with 20 returners coming back and ranked 15th in the state in 2A.
There were not a lot of positives in a game that was so one-sided. Lehde completed four passes for 73 yards and one touchdown.
Gaston completed one pass for 27 yards. Gaston led the team in rushing with 15 yards.
Caden Gaston caught a team high four passes for 92 yards and scored the team’s only touchdown on the night.
Defensively, McCrae Crossen led the team with 10 tackles despite being just a freshman. Raul Rodriguez was second with nine tackles, but picked up three tackles for loss that led the team. Carson Peters got the one turnover for Nocona with an interception.

To read the full story and see pictures from Saint Jo and Forestburg games, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.