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| HOUSTON - Katy head coach Mike Johnston promised early int he week leading up to Saturday's Division I Class 5A Division I Texas Bowl Championship game the Tigers would "dance with what brought us."
What brought he Tigers to Saturday's big dance - and then helped Katy waltz to its second state championship in the school's history - was a massive offensive line. The Tigers feature a pair of Division I college prospects, and that group paved the way for Katy to rush for 222 yards on the day. "We knew our guys up front could get some movement," said Johnston, noting that the Tigers averaged 260 pounds on the offensive line while Longview's defensive front averaged 215 pounds per man. "Our big guys started working them out pretty good, and we eventually started wearing down their front seven." Johnston maintained his promises that the Tigers would not change things up on offense Saturday. That was made despite the fact Longview had handled teams similar to Katy - teams that routinely outweighed the Lobo defensive front by 50 pounds per man and teams that featured one or more blue-chip running backs - with relative ease. Johnston's plan worked to perfection for Katy. Bronston Carroll (26 carries, 121 yards, one touchdown) and Rain Green (14 carries, 64 yards) shared time at tailback and did most of the damage, but it was the front wall of the tackles Eric Heitmann (265) and Walter Wigfall (310), guards Peter Wilkening (230) and Emillo Motnejano (265), center Kevin Sijansky (260) and tight end Michael de la Torre (23) that let the Tigers control the line of scrimmage and the clock. Katy had scoring drives of 16, six, nine and seven plays to go along with non-scoring marches of 10, four, six, nine and seven plays - meaning Longview's potent offense was idle on the sideline for much of the game. "They did a great job on time of possession. They just didn't give us enough snaps," Longview senior quarterback Jay Hurst said. "They did a great job executing their offensive scheme. We just didn't get enough snaps to do anything on offense." Katy drove from its own 17 to the Lobo 38 on the first drive, using 10 plays and more than 5:30 of the game clock in what was to be a sign of bad things to come for the Lobos. The third quarter was particularly damaging to the Lobos, who managed just six plays and saw the ball for a little more than two minutes in the quarter. Longview ran just 19 plays in the second half - seven coming on the final drive of the game when the game was out of reach. "We expected them to play smashmouth football, but they executed their offensive game plan well," Lobo senior defensive back Shawn Byrdson said. "They came out and controlled things and took a whole bunch of time off the clock." |