Posted: Sunday, December 19, 1999
HOUSTON (AP) – Art Briles got to be a proud father and coach in one victorious afternoon in the Astrodome Saturday.
Kendal Briles, the coaches’ son, had touchdown runs of 15, 3 and 15 yards to lead the Stephenville Yellowjackets to their fourth state title of the decade with a 28-18 victory over the Port Neches-Groves Indians Saturday in the Class 4A Division II title game.
“He’s got an intangible that you cannot coach,” the coach said. “When he sees something on the field, he can be hard to stop. But we’ve won this year as a team, and that’s what we did today.”
The Yellowjackets took a 14-6 halftime lead, but they almost lost the momentum when the Indians scored with 7:27 to play in the third quarter on a zigzagging 41-yard run by Bo Wortham, cutting Stephenville’s lead to 21-12.
Briles brought the Yellowjackets right back with a 79-yard drive in which he scored his third touchdown of the game with a 15-yard run with 14 seconds left in the third quarter.
Briles converted three third-down opportunities to keep the drive going. He rushed 94 yards on 19 carries and completed 14 of 20 passes for 130 yards.
“We just felt like the whole time, we needed to keep scoring points and just had to come out and play football against these guys,” he said. “Zach (Hunter), the wide receivers and everyone kept on opening up the lanes for me, and that’s a big thing.”
The Yellowjackets won previous state championships in 1993, 1994 and last season.
“All of them are great,” coach Briles said. “We never get an opportunity like this, but we felt we were coming in here into enemy territory. We just tried to play inspired football against Port Neches-Groves.”
The Yellowjackets fans were vastly outnumbered by Port Neches-Groves, which covered the Astrodome with a sea of purple.
But the Yellowjackets prevailed on the field.
“That was one of the best crowds that I’ve ever seen,” coach Briles said. “We knew that we’d be coming in here before a hostile crowd, and we wanted to prove that we could be real champions.”
Briles got Stephenville started with a twisting 15-yard run with 4:06 to go in the first quarter. He started left, turned to the right, retreated and ran around the right side, finally tiptoeing the final few yards to the score.
He gave the Yellowjackets a 14-3 lead with 7:37 to go in the second quarter, completing a 61-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown run.
Joey Price kicked field goals of 43 and 48 yards for Port Neches-Groves.
“From a standpoint of athletic ability and size, that’s the best we’ve played,” Port Neches-Groves coach Matt Burnett said. “They had a great idea for stopping our passing game. In the second half, they matched up and then we had some breakdowns and stalled out.”
Astrodome officials announced a combined crowd of 39,102 for the afternoon championship doubleheader. In the earlier game, Garland won the Class 5A Division II title with a 37-25 victory over Katy.
