Guest GoStangs Posted October 7, 2006 Report Posted October 7, 2006 From the Orange Leader Mustangs scorch Kirbyville Van Wade The Orange Leader WEST ORANGE — Playing smash-mouth football for their long-time smash-mouth coach, the West Orange-Stark Mustangs buried the Kirbyville Wildcats 46-16 to stay unbeaten in the District 21-3A race Friday night at Dan R. Hooks Stadium. Mustang head coach Dan Hooks was honored before the game with a big sign on the east side of the stadium as Mustang Stadium was officially named Dan R. Hooks Stadium. After four state championship appearances, including two Class 4A state titles in 1986 and 1987 and 14 district championships, the honor was certainly deserved and the Mustangs certainly pleased their coach with the easy victory. The fourth-ranked Mustangs (5-0, 2-0) rolled up 472 yards of total offense to turn back the game WIldcats (3-2, 1-1). Junior tailback DePauldrick Garrett torched Kirbyville for 187 yards and two touchdowns and also caught a 35-yard screen pass from quarterback Andre Bevil. Senior jack-of-all-trades Earl Thomas also had a huge outing, hauling in five passes for 140 yards and three touchdowns, including TD bombs of 61 and 53. Bevil finished the night 11-of-19 for 169 yards and three TDs. Jacoby Franks, who caught four passes for 31 yards, also completed 3-of-3 passes for 66 yards and threw the 53-yard TD toss to Thomas in the third period. The Mustangs limited the Wildcats to 196 yards of total offense. “What a wonderful night it was,†said Hooks. “The way the kids played tonight just made everything that much more special. We put up some huge offensive numbers. This offense has so much big-play capabilities. We’re certainly not a grind-it-out type of team. Garrett just ran wild all night long and Earl (Thomas) made some great catches and played so darn tough in the secondary. Bevil, what more can you say about him, he’s a tremendous leader.†The Mustangs engineered an 11-play, 58-yard scoring march on the first drive of the game, 52 of it coming on the ground. Garrett carried three times for 34 yards and Earl Thomas twice for 17 yards but it was quarterback Bevil that finished things off with a 1-yard sneak off right tackle. Bevil's extra-point kick was good as the Mustangs snared a 7-0 lead with 7:36 remaining in the first period. The Mustangs made it look easy on their next series when Bevil hooked up with Thomas on a 61-yard scoring bomb on the first play. Bevil used a great play fake and hit a streaking Thomas in stride along the left side. Thomas made an excellent grab and shrugged off a Kirbyville defender to just get into the end zone to push the WO-S advantage to 13-0 with 4:15 left in the first as the point-after attempt failed after a rough snap. Kirbyville showed a little life to get back into it, with an 11-play, 70-yard scoring drive that ate up more than six minutes of the clock. The big play came when Wildcat quarterback Pierce Rhodes hit running back Marlon Crawford on a 38-yard strike that got down to the Mustang 3. Three plays later, Rhodes went into the end zone on a 1-yard sneak. Rhodes was also able to dart in on a two-point conversion run as the Wildcats trimmed the margin to 13-8 with 10:11 left in the first half. The Wildcats recovered their own pooch kick on the ensuing kickoff at the 50 but the Mustang defense stifled the Wildcats. WO-S made the Wildcats pay when Garrett broke several tackles in the heart of the Kirbyville defense as the speedy junior found some daylight and went 72 yards down the Mustang sideline for a touchdown, pushing the Mustang lead to 20-8 with 6:55 still left in the half. “I really need to praise our offensive line for opening up so many holes,†said Garrett. “I feel I can do a lot of good things if a hole opens up and I saw a lot of them tonight. We’re really playing good football right now. Kirbyville gave us all we could handle. We’re going to get that from everybody we face from here on out.†The Mustangs put together a terrific 16-play, 87-yard scoring jaunt at the end of the half as Bevil ran the two-minute drill to near perfection. Bevil completed 5-of-9 on the march, utilizing the short pass along the left side to Thomas, Jacoby Franks and Dominique Rhodes. The Mustangs sank the Wildcats' hopes when on fourth-and-10 from the 17 Bevil connected with Thomas on the left side of the end zone for a touchdown as the crafty Thomas was able to get one foot down before going out of bounds. Thomas added to the Wildcats' misery when he picked off Rhodes at the Mustang 22 with 0:06 left in the half. The Mustangs outgained the Wildcats 286-97 in the first half. Garrett darted for 134 yards on just eight carries in the first 24 minutes. Bevil completed 8-of-16 passes for 124 yards and two TDs, both to Thomas, who had four first-half grabs for 87 yards. After shutting down Kirbyville in the second half's first series, the Mustangs used a little trickery to go up 34-8 when evil threw a pass to Jacoby Franks behind the line of scrimmage and Franks than cranked his right arm back and hit Thomas on a 53-yard bomb with 8:20 still left in the third period. The gritty Wildcats answered right back as Rhodes directed an 11-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that chewed up nearly seven minutes off the clock. Rhodes hit tight end Kody Alvarez on a 36-yard pass play for the big play on the march and Rhodes hit receiver Randy Musgrove on a 3-yard touchdown strike on fourth down. Rhodes found his way into the end zone on another two-point conversion run to make it 34-16 with 1:49 left in the third. “Coach (Jack) Alvarez is doing a tremendous job with that program and they never gave up,†said Hooks. “We gave up a couple big pass plays that led to both of their scores but overall I thought our defense was pretty good.†WO-S retaliated quickly though on the next series, racing 61 yards in seven plays. Garrett completed it when he caught a "textbook" screen from Bevil on a third-and-25 play and took it to the end zone from 35 yards out to make it 40-16 with 10:54 left in the game. Garrett added the finishing touches went he broke through five Kirbyville tackles and had two excellent cutback moves to score on a 32-yard run with 5:45 remaining. The Mustangs will host Hardin-Jefferson for Homecoming next week while the Wildcats visit Orangefield. The Beaumont Enterprise WO-S gets first win at Hooks Stadium By CHRIS DABE, The Enterprise 10/07/2006 Andrew Nenque/The Enterprise West Orange-Stark’s Earl Thomas breaks a tackle as he enters the end zone scoring against Kirbyville Friday in Orange. WEST ORANGE - Dan Hooks looked to the bleachers from behind a podium near the 50-yard line Friday and said, "When I get done crying, we'll play a football game." And when his West Orange-Stark football team played, it dominated. The Mustangs rolled to a 46-16 victory over Kirbyville on a night during which West Orange-Stark's stadium was named in Hooks' honor. "There was a lot of pressure on our kids and the coaching staff to win this game," said Hooks, who was honored before the game with a ceremony that included an unveiling of a board that listed his teams' district and playoff accomplishments. Included among those accomplishments are two state championships and four title game appearances. The Mustangs have won 15 district championships in 25 years under Hooks, and they remained in first place in District 21-3A by beating Kirbyville. "This was a big game for us because we wanted to win for Coach Hooks," said Texas-bound Earl Thomas, who caught five passes for 139 yards and three touchdowns. Two of those touchdown passes were thrown by quarterback Andre Bevil and the other by Jacoby Franks. DePauldrick Garrett rushed 13 times for 187 yards and two touchdowns and caught a touchdown pass from Bevil. The Mustangs (5-0, 2-0) scored a touchdown on each of their seven possessions that did not come at the end of a half. Bevil completed 11 of 19 passes for 173 yards and three touchdowns. The victory left WO-S as one of two undefeated teams in a district that has six teams that reached the playoffs last year. Silsbee also moved to 2-0 in district play by beating Bridge City. Kirbyville (3-2, 1-1) played without its regular starting quarterback, Aaron Hazlewood, who suffered a concussion in the team's district-opening victory over Jasper last week. Pierce Rhodes filled in for Hazlewood and completed 5 of 11 passes for 85 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Rhodes also ran for a touchdown. WO-S jumped out to a 13-0 lead in the first quarter. Kirbyville cut the margin to 13-8 with an 11-play drive that included a fourth-and-1 conversion and then recovered an onside kick. Kirbyville punted four plays later, and Garrett broke free for a 72-yard touchdown run two plays after that to give WO-S a 20-8 lead with 6:55 left in the half. "That took the momentum from us," Kirbyville coach Jack Alvarez said. "They came right back and made a big play on us. They have a lot of good athletes and they use them well." Kirbyville punted on its next possession, and Earl Thomas capped a 16-play, 87-yard drive with a 17-yard touchdown catch on fourth-and-10 to give WO-S a 27-8 lead. Thomas kept one foot in bounds along the left side of the end zone. After the kickoff, Thomas intercepted a pass with six seconds left in the half. "If you lined up all the players in Texas, he'd be one of the top 15 players," Hooks said of Thomas. After the game, Garrett looked to the board in the east end zone that listed the accomplishments of the teams coached by Hooks. "When I see that it makes me think about how important football was to so many people back in the day," he said. "It feels great to be a part of that. I've had people in my family play here, and it's special to be a part of that."
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