It was a massive heavyweight showdown as the No. 7 ranked Wimberley Texans battled the No. 3 ranked Brock Eagles at Baylor’s McLane Stadium.
The game felt similar to a championship boxing match going 12 rounds as neither team refused to back down.
Ultimately it was Wimberley who stood tall.
Forcing five turnovers including recovering a Brock fourth down fumble late in the fourth quarter, the Wimberley Texans knocked off the Eagles 32-23.
For the Code Red defense, the five forced turnovers contributed to 25 of the 32 points as the Wimberley offense took advantage of Brock’s mistakes.
“When you play good defense, you win championships,” Head Coach Doug Warren said. “Our team feeds off that, and you can see it out there. It breeds confidence.”
With the game tied at 7-7 in the second quarter, the Texans responded in a big way by forcing three turnovers on three straight Brock drives, which allowed Wimberley to score 16 points to take a 23-7 lead heading into halftime.
But anyone who has followed the Brock Eagles over the past two weeks automatically knew this game wasn’t over by a long shot.
“You can’t go into halftime thinking ‘Fellas we got this’,” Warren said. “That’s not how football works, especially with a great football team over there. They had us on our heels early in the second half then we fumbled the ball to give them life.”
The Eagles responded with 16 unanswered points in the second half as the game was tied at 23-23 during the fourth quarter.
Despite having their lead vanished and battling injuries, the Texans were still confident as ever that they were going to pull out the win.
“The thing about it was that there was no panic among the kids,” Warren said. “It’s a matter of — ‘Hey, just keep playing hard and eventually a good play is going to happen’ — you just have to convince them to keep playing hard. They continue to grow and get better.”
With Brock needing a score to take their first lead of the game, the Code Red defense needed a stop.
As the Eagles faced 4th down with 11 yards for the first down, the Texans came up with the sack.
On Brock’s next possession, the Eagles faced fourth down once again with an opportunity to take the lead.
However the Code Red defense forced their fourth fumble of the game to give the ball back to Wimberley.
For senior linebacker Wyatt Franchione, it was getting back to what they learned at two-a-day workouts in the summer.
“We went back to the basics,” Franchione said. “Coach Lambert brought us back to doing what we have been doing since day one.”
Immediately after the stop, sophomore quarterback Cody Stoever found senior running back Jack Boyle for the 19 yard touchdown to retake the lead for Wimberley.
“It was awesome and felt like a breath of fresh air,” Franchione said. “It got our defense to be upbeat and let us finish the game.”
After Brock muffed their kickoff return to put the ball at the five yard line, the Texans came up with a back breaking play for the Eagles as they forced a intentional grounding penalty in the endzone for a safety to not only give Wimberley two extra points but also getting the ball back.
Draining the clock out, the Texans sealed the win and celebrated at McLane Stadium.
Wimberley moves to 3-0 overall. While Brock is 0-3 on the season, they have likely played the toughest schedule in the state of Texas. The 3A-Division II Brock Eagles have lost to three 4A-Division II schools, all of which are ranked in the top 10 in the state.
The Texans head back home next Friday for a big rivalry game against the Fredericksburg Battlin’ Billies.
Wimberley leads the overall series at 10-2.
Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. from Texan Stadium on Friday.
