By Thomas Jones, Sports editor

 

SAN ANTONIO-Westlake faced an unfamiliar game in Saturday’s regional final at the Alamodome.

San Antonio Clark called it keepaway.

Powered by a relentless ground game that nibbled away at Westlake’s defense and the game clock, the Cougars held on for a 24-21 win to claim the Class 5A Region IV Division I championship and a spot in the state semifinals. Clark (13-1) played close to error-free football, said Westlake coach Derek Long, and that left Westlake (9-5) with little room for any miscues.

“They did a great job of pounding the ball, which is what they like to do,” he said. “They didn’t make any mistakes, and we did. And it doesn’t take many mistakes in a game like this to lose.”

Clark held the ball for 33 minutes, 25 seconds and limited the Chaps to just seven possessions. Because of that limited number of snaps, Westlake could ill afford to squander any drives.

But that’s what happened three times, including twice in the final seven minutes. Clark took a 24-21 lead with 7:44 left in the game, but a 38-yard kickoff return by Ryan Swope and a late hit against Clark allowed Westlake to start the subsequent possession at the Cougars’ 34-yard line.

The Chaps couldn’t take advantage of that favorable field position. After moving to the 25-yard line, Westlake failed to convert a fourth-and-1 with 5:03 left in the game.

The Cougars then ate up almost four minutes on a six-play drive that went just 13 yards. Westlake regained possession at its own 11-yard line with 1:23 and two timeouts and promptly moved close to midfield after a 10-yard pass to Swope and a 20-yard run by Swope around the right side.

That’s when the Cougars stiffened. They forced four straight incompletions, including a fourth-down pass attempt from Tanner Price to tight end Stephen Dawkins that would have given Westlake the ball at approximately Clark’s 30-yard line with eight seconds remaining in the game. When that pass fell to the turf, the Clark sideline exploded with a roar of exuberance while the Chaps’ dropped their heads in stunned silence.

“We were all so anxious on the sidelines, just wanting to get the ball,” said Swope, who will next suit up for Texas A&M University. “All the guys on the team have such a passion, and we were hungry. Things didn’t go our way, but this team gave it could. That’s all you can do.”

Swope did his part with 144 yards and three touchdowns on 18 carries, but it wasn’t enough to lift Westlake to victory in a game that saw the ball bounce Clark’s way. The Chaps failed to force a turnover for the first time in the postseason, and they allowed Clark to convert all four of its fourth-down plays. The Cougars had one fumble in the game, but it bounced back into the hands of workhorse running back Jock Tilghman. They also appeared to have fumbled twice more based on the big-screen replays in the stadium, but the officials negated two Chap fumble recoveries by ruling the Clark running backs down.

The game’s lone turnover occurred when the Cougars stripped Westlake fullback Bryce Hager of the ball early in the second quarter.

That takeaway proved a turning point in the game. Westlake had scored on its first two possessions of the game and appeared poised to take a 21-7 lead after Hager rumbled into Cougar territory before losing the ball.

Between that fumble and Swope’s final touchdown, however, the Chaps ran just nine plays compared to 44 for Clark. The Cougars tied the game at 14-14 on the following drive and took a 17-14 lead late in the third quarter.

Swope gave the Chaps a 21-17 lead with 1:18 left in the third on a 43-yard run, but the patient Cougars responded with a 10-play touchdown drive that ate 6:31 off the clock.

“They (the Cougars) did a heck of a job running the football,” Westlake receiver Mike Walker said. “That was the deciding factor; they just kept that ball.”

Long agreed with his senior captain.

“That’s the way they operate,” he said. “Defensively, you have to stop them. They’d get three yards, three yards, three yards, then two on fourth down. They didn’t have a lot of penalties, either.”

Clark ended the contest with 273 yards on 60 plays, compared to 307 yards on 36 plays for the Chaps. Tilghman had 147 of those yards on 34 carries. All but 28 of Clark’s total yards came on the ground as the Cougars worked behind a big and gifted offensive line to end the Chaps’ eight-game win streak.

Even in defeat, however, Swope said his team should stroll out of the Alamodome with heads held high.

“You could write a book about this year,” he said. “We started 1-4 and everyone wrote us off. But we kept playing hard and believing in each other and the coaches, and we never gave up.”