Vandegrift raced out to an early lead behind the tag-team rushing attack of juniors Preston James and Evan Williamson. James (18-103, 5.7 YPC, TD) capped off a brutally efficient opening drive with a 15-yard run to stake the Vipers to an early lead.<\/p>\n
But it wouldn\u2019t survive the quarter.<\/p>\n
Cedar Park got on the board with the first of three field goals from junior Jack Girdeau, a 45-yarder that made it 7-3. Then a 26-yard touchdown strike from senior David Cooper (14-17, 179 Yds., TD) to senior Brayden Jahns (6-100, 16.7 YPC, TD) put the Timberwolves up 10-7 after the first quarter.<\/p>\n
The teams traded second quarter field goals: Viper senior Landon Klein tied the game on a 38-yard kick before Girardeau\u2019s 21-yard chip shot put the Timberwolves back on top. Then came a huge momentum shift.<\/p>\n
Late in the second quarter, Vandegrift recovered a muffed punt at the Cedar Park 17-yard line and appeared poised to take a halftime lead — but couldn\u2019t capitalize. Instead, a missed Viper field goal sent Cedar Park into the locker room with their 13-10 lead intact. <\/p>\n
Both defenses dominated in the third quarter. With Vandegrift\u2019s offense hobbled after losing Williamson to injury, Cedar Park\u2019s balanced offense took advantage of a tiring Vandegrift defense. With seniors Lucas Viloria (28-82) and Kysen Pham (14-42, TD) grinding out the clock, Girardeau\u2019s hat trick upped the visitors\u2019 lead to 16-10 before Pham\u2019s 6-yard run capped off the clinching drive. <\/p>\n
Cedar Park (4-0, 8-0) has now defeated each of the other three top contenders for the district crown and appears poised to capture the title in their first year as a 6A program. The Timberwolves host East View Friday night (11\/23) before closing out the season as the visitors at Gupton against Vista Ridge. <\/p>\n
After experiencing a third regular season loss for the first time since 2017, Vandegrift looks to get back on track and solidify their playoff position against Leander Friday night (10\/23) at Bible Stadium. <\/p>\n
VYPE Live will broadcast all those games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vandegrift raced out to an early lead behind the tag-team rushing attack of juniors Preston James and Evan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-473134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473134","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=473134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}