Friday’s first round TAPPS football playoff game between Geneva School of Boerne and Pantego Christian turned into the Tristan Brown show.
The Panthers talented running back/quarterback lit up the scoreboard after he accounted for six touchdowns – four rushing, one receiving and tossed another – as he led his team to a 47-24 victory over the Eagles.
For good measure, Brown also intercepted a pass while playing defense.
Geneva head coach Grant Gaston said he knew what Brown could do for his team.
“He’s great and we knew he would be, he’s every bit of the athlete we knew he was,” the coach said. “We worked really hard to scheme all week long to stop him and at times we held him in check, but towards the end we just ran out of gas. He’s a great athlete and you can’t keep him down forever.”
Brown hauled in a 26-TD pass for an early lead but Geneva’s Harris Priesmeyer answered with a 52-yard sprint after he blasted through the Panthers’ defense and into the end zone to make it 6-6.
But Brown and the Panthers answered again after Brown capped a 9-play drive with a 1-yard run and it was 12-6 after both teams missed all their extra points on the first three scores.
Brown tacked on two more touchdowns in the second quarter, one on an 8-yard run, while he tossed the other to Dylan Johnston on a 27-yard completion and the Panthers were up 26-6 at halftime.
Geneva struggled with ball security in the second stanza and fumbled twice, with both being recovered by the Panthers. One of the Eagles’ fumbles came at the Pantego 1-yard line to kill a promising drive.
Geneva finished with five turnovers in the game – three fumbles and two interceptions – and Gaston said that’s just too many against a team like Pantego Christian.
“I think if we can keep the turnovers in check, we can keep the score close and then that can change some things at the end potentially,” Gaston said. “It’s a truism of football at every level of football – turnovers will get you.”
Geneva turned in its best quarter of the night in the third after they won the stanza, 6-0. Priesmeyer capped an Eagles’ drive with a 7-yard run to paydirt and the lead was down to 26-12, but that’s as close as they came.
The Panthers closed out the fourth quarter with three touchdowns, two of them on TD runs of 42 and 73 yards by Brown and the other a 41-yard touchdown pass to Nickens Harber from Hayes Young.
Geneva fought to the end and fired back with two touchdowns. Priesmeyer ran for his third TD of the night and scored on a 4th and 4 at the Panther’ 6-yard line, while Reid Aderholt caught a Bryce Hanover 8-yard toss for the other score.
Gaston said he was proud of their effort and was looking forward to the offseason, which started this past Monday with a 7 a.m. weight-lifting session.
“We didn’t catch up like we hoped but we never stopped fighting, we always fight,” he said. “We’re building something, we’re very, very young, we only had five seniors this year and so we played a bunch of freshmen and sophomores this year, so I think the future is bright.”
Seniors are Jackson Mitchell, Luke Brunsvold, Griffin Miller, Caleb Baggs and Wyatt Bruss.
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