November 10, 2017. John Herbert Eakin Stadium –
Last Friday saw the Tenaha Tigers improve their regular season record to 10-0 with a 40-6 win over neighboring Timpson High School. Tenaha finished District 11 2A-1 undefeated and gained the conference title with a 5-0 record in league play. The Tigers haven’t lost a district contest since a 2008 loss to the Mount Enterprise Wildcats.
The Timpson Bears overall record fell to 8-2 and their conference mark ended at 4-1. They will enter the UIL Football Playoffs next week as the district’s #2 seed.
Tenaha will play the Colmesneil Bulldogs next Thursday, November 16, 2017, at 7 p.m., at Shelbyville High Schools’ Dragons Football Field. The Bulldogs are the fourth place representative of District 12. They have a 4-5 overall standing and a 2-3 conference record. Timpson will face Hull-Daisetta is the District 12 third place representative they have a 4-5 overall mark and a 3-2 conference record. Details for these games will be made available later this week. Timpson and Hulls-Daisetta will face off at 7 p.m. Thursday, November 16, 2017, at Diboll High Schools’ Lumberjack Stadium.
Timpson enjoyed good field position on their first offensive drive after a nice kick return to the Bear’s 47-yard line to start Friday’s game.
Tenaha stalled the Bear’s opening drive which netted only 8 yards, with some help from an illegal procedure penalty, and an incomplete pass on fourth down.
On the second play of Tenahas’ first drive quarterback CJ Horn broke free for a 50-yard touchdown run which helped Tenaha take a 7-0 lead, after a Christian Castillo extra point kick with 8:29 left in the opening quarter.
Tenaha extended their lead with a Trai Gardner 66-yard touchdown which gave the Tigers a 13-0 advantage with 9:01 left in the second quarter. Castillo added another extra point kick to give the Tigers a 14-0 lead.
The Bears next drive stalled after attaining negative yardage. On fourth down and 13-yards-to-go Timpson’s Jordan Johnson made an excellent punt to give the Tigers the ball back at their own 36-yard line with 6 minutes left in the first half. Tenahas’ next drive stalled as well. They punted the ball back to the Bears after just four plays.
After gaining an initial first down, to start their next drive, Timpson punted the ball back to the Tigers who were content to take a knee and run the remaining time off the clock. The two teams headed to the locker room at halftime with the Tenaha Tigers leading the Timpson Bears by a 14-0 margin.
The third period saw Tenaha extend their lead to 21-0 with 6:25 left when CJ Horn hit Trai Gardner on a 16-yard touchdown reception. Moments later Tigers linebacker Antuwon Harris scooped up a Bears special teams fumble and returned it for a Tenaha touchdown with 6:09 remaining in the third period. This extended the Tenaha lead to 27-0.
A 58-yard Onterio Thompson touchdown with 2:25 left in the third quarter extended Tenahas’ lead to 33-0.
In the fourth period Timpson got on the scoreboard with an 8-yard Jordan Osby run with under eight minutes left in the game. The score pulled Timpson to within 33-8 of the Tigers.
Tenaha used a 9-play 50-yard drive to use up a lot all of the remaining time off the play clock. Thompson capped the scoring drive off with a 9-yard touchdown run with less than 3-minutes left in the contest. This gave Tenaha the final 40-6 District 11 2A-1 Championship title win.
Tenaha had an advantage in rushing yardage by a 419-85 yard margin. Timpson completed six passes on ten attempts gaining 85 yards. Tenaha passed for 59 yards completing 4 of 8 attempts. Each team lost one fumble. Tenaha had a 13-4 advantage in gaining first downs.
