Euless Trinity made the most out of limited opportunities.
The Trojans scored the last three touchdowns in the second half to pull away for a 49-28 win over Houston Strake Jesuit on Friday night at Pennington Field.
Trinity had only 33 offensive plays in the game — 16 in the first half and 17 in the second half. Four of those 17 plays in the final two quarters went for touchdowns.
“We are explosive on offense and you know our o-line, it starts with those guys,” Euless Trinity coach Aaron Linweeaver said. “(Quarterback) TJ (Tupou) was on another level tonight. We are pretty tough to stop, to be honest with you.”
Whenever the Trojans had the ball in the second half, they found the end zone.
Tied at 21 after the first 24 minutes of play, senior running Josh Bell had a 16-yard touchdown run on the first drive of the third quarter. He was hit near the goal line and was flipped in the air and tumbled into the end zone.
The Crusaders, 3-8 last year, answered in a very similar style to how the first half went.
Strake Jesuit used a heavy dose of running back John Hebert and a pair of big passing plays. Quarterback Bryson Easley hit Heger Davis on a 16-yard play to move into the Euless red zone and on 4th-and-3 from the 12-yard line, Easley connected with Henry Omanga for a second touchdown.
Tied at 28-28, the Trojans needed less than a minute to answer after the Crusaders used more than six minutes on the previous drive.
Running back JT Harris had a 25-yard run on second down and then fullback Michael Saafi scored on a 21-yard run to give the Trojans the lead for the final time — with 3:01 left in the third.
Trinity’s defense came up with big plays on the next two drives to keep the Crusaders off the board in the fourth quarter.
Strake Jesuit drove to the Euless 40-yard line, but junior defensive back Donnell Johnsons stepped in front of a pass attempt toward Omanga and knocked it to the ground, forcing a turnover on downs.
It took the Trojans two plays to take advantage.
Tupou had a 36-yard run and then wide receiver Ethan Wright came in at quarterback and took a snap and ran 24 yards up the middle to score with less than 8 minutes to play.
Up 42-28 at the time, that was the largest lead for either team in what was a see-saw battle before that.
Three plays later, Lemariea Parson intercepted Easley and ran it back 70 yards for a touchdown. However, a block in the back negated the score for the Trojans.
However, Trinity got the ball and needed 5 plays to score. Harris had runs of 10 and 24 yards and that set up Tupou’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Lukus Sanchez with 3:50 left in the game.
“We had to calm down, read our keys and we put them behind the chains a little bit,” Lineweaver said. “We got some turnovers. If you do your job, good things happen.
“We made a couple more plays than they did.”
The first half featured plenty of fireworks with a combined six straight scoring drives and then back-to-back fumbles.
That led to a 21-21 tie at the break.
Hebert scored on the third play of the game to give the Crusaders an early advantage.
Bell answered with a 3-yard run for his first touchdown of the game. That drive was set up by a 62-yard kickoff return by Harris, which set the Trojans up at the Strake Jesuit 34-yard line.
Strake Jesuit took the lead on the next drive, but Harris fielded the next kickoff and ran 84 yards for a game-tying touchdown — 16 seconds after his team went down 14-7.
“I just saw the hole and I left,” Harris said. “I don’t think I will even get the ball on kickoff the rest of the year; I think they will push it to the other side.”
Strake Jesuit took the lead for the third time, but Trinity responded with a 3-play drive. Tupou’s 23-yard run moved the ball into the Crusaders’ side of the field. Bell accounted for the final 34 yards of the drive, the last a 20-yard touchdown run.
That tied the game at 21 with 8:23 left in the second quarter.
While neither team scored again until the third quarter, the Trinity defense came up big late in the first half.
The Crusaders went for it on 4th-and-1 from the Euless 12, but Parson stepped up and tackled Hebert for no gain to force a red-zone turnover and keep the game tied.
“The game was tight and at the end, the defense did their thing and the offense continued to do our thing,” Tupou said. “We pulled away with a great W tonight.”
Trinity travels to Midland Legacy next week, looking to go 2-0 for the first time since 2019.
