PANTHERS COME ON STRONG IN 2ND HALF FOR 26-8WIN OVER BOLD
The Panther football team had little trouble moving the ball in the first half of its regular-season finalé against the BOLD Warriors on Tuesday but had nothing to show for it. That changed in the second half when TMB turned a scoreless halftime tie into a 26-8 victory.
TMB finished 4-4 during the regular season, bookending four straight losses with wins in their first two and last two games. The latter means the Panthers enter the postseason with some much-needed momentum as they prepare for a rematch with the RTR Knights on Tuesday as the No. 5 seed.
“This means a lot,” said TMB receiver/ defensive back Ty Yackley. “We’ve just got to come ready to play next week — onto the next one.”
TMB (4-4) played the field position game for the entire first half Tuesday. The Panthers started their first two drives near midfield, but both possessions ended with a punt, and the Warriors picked off Jackson Kruse to stop two straight drives.
“The first one was a bad throw, the second was a great throw and a bad catch; we knew it was going to be tough to run against them,” coach Kruse said. “We had to make plays in the passing game. It was really frustrating, because we had moved the ball but couldn’t finish the drives.”
BOLD wasn’t fairing much better in this defensive slugfest. The Warriors turned the ball over on downs on their first drive, punted on their second, and saw Ty Yackley get the first of his two interceptions on the third.
“As frustrating as it was on offense in the first half, the defense gave us the ball in really good field position a lot,” coach Kruse said. “There was not really a threat of a (BOLD) score in the first half. We gave up one in the second half, but otherwise it was a really good game for our defense for the second game in a row, and we’re going to need that Tuesday.”
“We’re just staying home, making plays; everyone’s doing their job,” Yackley said.
The Panther offense kept its foot on the gas offensively to start the second half, and it began to pay off. On a 3rd-and-10 on their initial drive of the third quarter, Kruse hit a wide open Braden Morgan over the middle, and Morgan raced 71 yards down the sideline to put TMB in business at the BOLD 1-yard line. On the very next play, Kruse broke the scoreless tie, barreling into the end zone. Kruse found Yackley for the two-point conversion and an 8-0 lead early in the third.
“We started to make some plays, the O-line started to play better, too,” coach Kruse said. “The line did a pretty good job all game.”
But BOLD responded with an 11-play scoring drive to tie the game at 8-8 with just under 5 minutes to go in the quarter.
The Warriors’ momentum didn’t last long, however, as Kruse threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Yackley to break the tie. Kruse was almost sacked on the play by a hard-charging BOLD defense, but bought enough time for Yackley to find a soft spot in the BOLD secondary, and just like that, the Panthers were up 14-8 late in the third quarter.
“Jackson did a good job scrambling and made a play,” coach Kruse said. “Their six (defensive lineman) are pretty good, so we knew we were going to have to get something on the outside.”
The Panthers forced a BOLD punt to start the fourth quarter and made it a two-score game when Kruse threw a 18-yard touchdown pass to Aiden Sanow. After another Yackley interception, the Kruse-to-Sanow connection clicked again for a 41-yard touchdown and a 26-8 lead with just over 3 minutes to go.
“We knew if we picked it up, good things would happen in the second half,” said Yackley. “We weren’t worried. We just had to regroup and make some plays.”
TMB’s 97 rushing yards were its second lowest of the season, but the Panthers made up for it by amassing 242 yards through the air, their most since they threw for 281 yards against United South Central on Sept. 11.
Yackley accounted for 69 of those yards on five catches, and Sanow had three grabs for 65 yards.
Defensively, Oakley Bornitz led the team in tackles with seven and Sanow had six, including one for a loss.
• The Panthers will get a shot at revenge against the RTR Knights at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in Tyler in the first round of the section playoffs. RTR ruined the Panther’s homecoming on Oct. 2 with a 35-8 win.
