Texas powerhouse North Shore scored two late touchdowns to survive a scare from John Curtis at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium on Friday night in Lafayette.<\/p>\n
North Shore, the reigning champions of the largest division in Texas (Class 6A, Div. I) trailed the Patriots 17-14 in the fourth quarter before rallying to win 27-17.<\/p>\n
“We have to find a way to execute better right there in the fourth quarter, but that’s why you play these types of games against an opponent that’s going to help you down the road in district and the playoffs,” Patriots offensive coordinator Jeff Curtis said.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs (2-0), who entered the game ranked No. 1 in Texas by High School On SI, appeared to be in control of the game at halftime with a 14-3 lead.<\/p>\n
“I think we just had to adjust to the speed of the game,” Curtis said. “We haven’t seen that physicality and quickness since St. Aug in the playoffs last year.<\/p>\n
“We have a lot of new guys playing. Once we settled in, we played our brand of football and had success offensively.”<\/p>\n
After the Patriots forced North Shore (2-0) to go three and out on its first possession of the third quarter, London Padgett fired a long pass on third and 15 to Keigon Linton for a first down at the Mustangs 20.<\/p>\n
Following a hydration timeout, Padgett connected with tight end Caden Battard from 17 yards out to cut it to 14-10.<\/p>\n
“North Shore is a really good football team,” Curtis said. “We had a hard time blocking them, especially on their pass rush where they could pin their ears back. I’m proud of how London fought. He took a lot of hits, showed toughness and gave us a chance to win.”<\/p>\n
Following another three and out by the Mustangs, Curtis took advantage of great field position at the North Shore 43 and converted on a fake punt. A few plays later, Padgett’s swing pass to Jarvis Stevenson netted a first down, and the junior quarterback snuck it in from the 3 for a 17-14 lead.<\/p>\n
“There were a lot of positives, no doubt,” Curtis said. “In the first quarter, we played very poorly offensively. The defense kept us in it. We got a little momentum offensively and did what we do.<\/p>\n
“But we have to find a way to do better. We’re not into moral victories here.”<\/p>\n
When the Mustangs moved ahead 20-17 early in the fourth quarter, Isaac Hrabovsky returned the ensuing kick near midfield, then took a pitch from Padgett and rambled down to the North Shore 10, but a flag wiped out the play.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, that’s a huge momentum swing,” Curtis said. “We had it at their 10 with a ton of momentum, but we grabbed their jersey. It was a tough call.”<\/p>\n
Late in the second quarter, Curtis was stopped in the red zone when a pass intended for Stevenson was tipped and intercepted by the Mustangs.<\/p>\n
Cole Schmidt’s 22-yard field goal early in the second quarter cut North Shore’s lead to 7-3.<\/p>\n
“We had it there in the fourth quarter with the ball, a little momentum and driving,” Curtis said. “We couldn’t convert near midfield. We decided to go for it and jumped offside.”<\/p>\n
The game was the season opener for the Patriots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas powerhouse North Shore scored two late touchdowns to survive a scare from John Curtis at Our Lady…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32566,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-426899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-hardwall","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}