Wednesday afternoon turned into the Grayson Rigdon show in the 1A Division II State Title Game.
The freshman running back and linebacker for Strawn finished with 222 rushing yards, 159 passing yards, eight total touchdowns, and 16 total tackles defensively as the Greyhounds pulled away from Motley County to secure a 73-28 victory by mercy rule at AT&T Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.
According to Rigdon, “wide open field, green grass, and good blocks,” were the key to his big night in which he took home Offensive MVP honors.
Strawn head coach Dewaine Lee said Rigdon has come a long way from when Strawn took on White Deer in week one.
“He’s so elusive,” Lee said. “When we started the year out, he was coming out of junior high, he’s 15 years old. The first game, he did some things and we thought, ‘Okay, he’s pretty good.’ He didn’t get after it all the time, but by weeks 6-7, he started maturing once he understood the system and his ability.”
However, Strawn opened the game with a bit of a rocky start as it lost two fumbles in the first six minutes, finding itself down 8-6.
“I felt like we made some mistakes early; we were a little amped up, including myself,” Lee said. “I think once we got into a rhythm, I thought we started playing our game. I thought we were pretty physical.”
Despite leading the turnover battle 2-0 early on, Motley County trailed 14-8 seven minutes into the game after Grayson and his brother Griffin connected for a 47-touchdown.
Motley County head coach Mike Bigham said not taking advantage of Strawn’s early mistakes came back to cost his team dearly.
“It’s always a tough way to end your season losing a football game,” Bigham said. “I think our coaches and kids, we just missed some opportunities early in the ball game to capitalize on some things that might have made a better outcome of it. We got beat by a very good football team.”
After Strawn took the lead, the turnover bug began to bite Motley County as the Matadors lost fumbles on each of their next three possessions.
Grayson Rigdon turned those fumbles into 22 Greyhound points as he completed touchdowns of 20 and 41 yards to Lorenzo Garcia and Payton Harris respectively with a 79-yard rushing touchdown sandwiched in between. That scoring barrage point Strawn up 36-8.
Motley County found a little bit of life after that as Jake Richards scored from 14 yards out and Demitric Sims connected with Kason Degan for a 31-yard touchdown.
Richards finished the game 132 rushing yards and two touchdowns, the final game of his illustrious career which saw him break the all-time Texas six-man single-season rushing record in 2019, leading Motley County to the state title game in the process.
“It’s been awesome with him,” Bigham said. “Our defense wasn’t very good two years ago, so he had to rush for a lot of yards and score a lot of touchdowns for us to do what he did. He’s one good running back, and he’ll always be remembered by Motley County.”
But even as the Matadors began to find the end zone before halftime, Strawn was undeterred as Grayson Rigdon scored on a 38-yard run and caught a 45-yard touchdown pass from Evan Williams to ensure Strawn held a convincing 50-22 halftime lead.
In the second half, Rigdon just kept going. He completed a 21-yard touchdown pass to Harris and scored on touchdown runs of two and five yards on the ensuing possession to put Strawn within a point of mercy rule victory, up 72-28.
On the ensuing point-after attempt, Williams faked like he was going to hold for the kick before popping up and tossing the ball to Kadin Parsons to get the one point Strawn needed to trigger the 45-point mercy rule against Motley County.
And although Motley County was 45’d for the second consecutive time in a state title game, Bigham was still extremely proud of his players for a 14-1 season and a second trip to AT&T Stadium in three years.
“These boys did things for us and our program that established something for a little bitty town out in West Texas to take a lot of pride in for a lot of years to come,” Bigham said. “I love them. When you get to be with them the whole time since they’re little and see them end up on a stage like we did today, it’s emotional and it’s rewarding.”
For Strawn, Lee reflected on a moment in week five against Westbrook that helped prepare Strawn for its early struggles against Motley County.
“In every team and every family, there’s going to be peaks and valleys,” Lee said. “Westbrook got on us two touchdowns and [Grayson Rigdon] went out of the game, he hurt his knee. He put a knee brace on and came back and that’s when our team started growing. That was the best thing for us, when we had that adversity. I think that was the turning point of our season.”
The Greyhounds would go on to finish the regular season 10-0 before beating each of its five playoff opponents by mercy rule.
Strawn’s 10 seniors on its roster were just freshmen when the Greyhounds won the state title back in 2018. After Wednesday’s dominating performance, this group of Greyhound players now have a state title of their own to celebrate.
“It’s crazy to believe that we just did that as our own group,” said Payton Harris, a senior lineman and linebacker for Strawn. “It’s just mind-blowing. It was worth all the early morning workouts.”
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