Instant Analysis: Refugio 23, Crawford 20

 

This one might end up being the most physical state title game this week. 

There were no shortage of hard hits in this one, far more so than usual. You can’t make it to this point in the season without being a physical team, but these two teams pounded and pounded and pounded on each other until it seemed like there might not be much left of either team by the end of the game. It was a slugfest, a game won through the maximum usage of football’s controlled acts of violence. This is not a bad thing, the game is meant to be physical, merely a note that this one was exceptionally so.

Crawford adjusted while Refugio didn’t, but it didn’t matter. 

Refugio’s “Super Stack” formation (the one where they had two lead blockers for Mascorro stacked behind the quarterback), was great and innovative, but it didn’t exactly work as planned. In the end, Crawford adjusted their offensive attack to get past the talented and tough Refugio defense, while it seemed like Refugio didn’t give any variations in their attack until the 4th quarter. Even after they changed some things, it just didn’t work as well as it could’ve.

Even so, Refugio just kept pounding with their original gameplan until Crawford fell. It was more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel, but sledgehammers are still effective.

Crawford owns the edge

All day long, it seemed like Refugio thought they could hit the edges with Mascorro and company, and all day long, Crawford’s edge players pushed lead blockers back into the teeth of the rush. The aforementioned physicality paid off, but make no mistake, Crawford didn’t just hit hard. This was a calculated move to play aggressive on the edge, a gamble that paid off heavily in this game.

Blood and guts and whatever else you got. 

Jacobe Avery spent a second calling some dinosaurs after a run, then punched in a tough TD midway through the 4th quarter. It was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a gutty performance, especially after he was hit as much as he was. There were many different things to highlight this game, but an undercurrent of physicality bleeds into all of them.

On the opposite side, Garrett Dutschmann played a grown man’s game of football. He consistently punished would-be tacklers, and was great in the open field, especially on his borderline miraculous touchdown catch and run.

The size of Refugio was just too much. 

Crawford gave literally everything they have, but sometimes, life just isn’t fair. The big guys are hard to tackle for a reason, and they’re especially hard to tackle in the 4th quarter. Refugio just had to hand it to Mascorro in the 4th and let him work. The massive back ended up being a little too much for the Crawford defense.

 

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