It’ll be a dogfight Friday night in the Alamodome when the Greyhounds of Boerne and the Bulldogs of Tyler Chapel Hill face off in the 4A DI state semifinals.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Friday in the Dome between Boerne (14-0) and Chapel Hill (12-2).
Last Friday, Boerne won its fourth-round game over Calallen, 49-19, to set a Boerne ISD football record for most wins in a season with 14.
The Greyhounds drew first blood and scored on the opening kickoff and was up 7-0 just 12 seconds into the contest after McCoy Bruce took it to the end zone for an 82-yard TD. They never trailed from there as they took command over the Wildcats.
Bruce said his blockers were the key to the play.
“I want to thank my blockers because that gap was wide open. I saw it right away too and I just hit the hole and I was gone from there,” he said. “Once I went through the hole and broke the first tackle, I thought I had a chance to score. Then the kicker missed me and I kept going.”
Boerne added four offensive touchdowns from there as Jaxon Baize threw two touchdown passes to brother Braden Baize and another to Brooks Perez, while Adam Hicks scored on a 1-yard run and it was 35-12. The three TD passes that Jaxon Baize tossed gave him 49 for the season.
A Houston Hendrix fumble recovery at the Wildcats’ 31-yard line set up the Hicks score.
Coach Che Hendrix said the defense has done a great job of setting up the offense with short fields all season.
“With our defense and special teams play, there is a direct correlation to our scoring,” he said. “When you pin people back and give the offense a short field, it’s complementary football.”
Late in the first half, Koen Wolff intercepted a pass and returned it 69 yards for a touchdown for a Pick-6. Wolff said he read the quarterback’s eyes on the play.
“We were in cover 2 and I was shuffling outside and reading the quarterback’s eyes and my guy ran an out and he threw it right to me. I had a barrage of blockers down the field so I just took it in,” he said. “I made that last cut and broke that kid; I was just telling myself, ‘Don’t get tracked down.’ I think that was a huge play in the game, to change the momentum like that.”
It certainly was and made the score 42-12 at the halftime break.
Coach Hendrix said a special team’s touchdown and a defensive TD changed the tone of the game.
“When you get off to a start like that, with a special teams touchdown and a defensive touchdown in a half, things are usually going your way,” Hendrix said. “That touchdown was probably the play of the game by Koen Wolff. That was a killer because if they score, they had a chance to cut into the lead and make it a game. Koen Wolff’s interception completely changed the trajectory of the game, that hurt them and gave us momentum. It could have been a lot different if they had scored on that drive.”
Calallen did score on its opening drive of the third quarter and it was 42-19 and then the Wildcats picked off a Boerne pass and took it down to the 1-yard line but a fumble spoiled their chances of scoring and getting back into the game. Will French fell on the left.
loose ball and kept Calallen from getting any closer.
TJ Dement iced the game later in the fourth quarter with a 59-yard run straight through the middle of the Wildcats defense and it was 49-19 with 6:53 Calallen only had the ball more after that and was forced to punt, giving BHS the ball back with 31 remaining. The Greyhounds recorded first downs and ran out the clock from there.
NOTES: Boerne’s appearance in this Friday’s state semifinals is only the third by a BISD football team. The 2004 BHS squad played in the state semis, won 12 games during that season and finished 12-2, while the 2019 Boerne Champion squad won 13 games and made it to the state semifinals to finish 13-2.
Back in 2004, there was one less round, so the ’04’s fourth-round appearance was the state semifinals. The UIL added another team to the playoff mix since then, from three to four teams in each district, which added another round, so this will be the 2022 team’s fifth-round game. Greyhound McCoy Bruce said very few people believed making it this far was possible. “I would say we had a lot of doubters at the beginning of the year for sure but we kept proving them wrong every week,” he said. “We just play for the guy next to us, that helps us keep going.”
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