Fort Worth Arlington Heights and Everman got to put the off season work to the test on Friday at Farrington Field.
When the clock ran out, it was the Arlington Heights Yellow Jackets that came out on top with a narrow 25-21 win over the Bulldogs.
“The number one thing I wanted to see when we scheduled this game -- I wanted to make sure our kids can play hard and tough,” Arlington Heights head coach Curtis James said. “Everman is a great great football program and they are always hard nosed kids.”
While Arlington Heights came home with the win, it was Everman’s Carl Carter that scored the first touchdown of the night with 9:31 left in the first quarter.
The Yellow Jackets answered when quarterback Kaeden Grant made a rushing touchdown. Arlington Heights’ two point conversion was no good, and the score was 7-6. Heights followed this with another touchdown by Carson James with 6:12 left in the first quarter. The Yellow Jackets once again weren’t able to make the two point conversion. The score was 12-7.
James said to keep trying for two was an intentional coaching decision.
“The fight is what we wanted,” James said. “I made some head coaching decisions to go for two. I wanted to be aggressive. I wanted my kids to play aggressive and it could have bit us in the butt, but this game was not meant to win or lose but to make us set up for the season and that is what we wanted to do.”
The touchdowns kept coming in the first quarter for Arlington Heights. The third touchdown of the night was made by Carson James with 6:12 left in the quarter. At that point, the Yellow Jackets were up 18-7.
James credits this success to his offseason program.
“We preach offseason, I make every kid in the program run track and a lot of them, about 95% of them showed up all summer.” James said. “So to be tough, you got to show it when you get into the game or it doesn’t matter.”
Everman wanted to get back in the game. Brendan Taylor took it into the endzone to bring the Bulldogs within four points of the Yellow Jackets.
The next scoring play came when Everman’s Michael Victoria striped the ball out of the quarterback’s hand and took it back for a touchdown with 3:52 remaining in the half. Everman led going into halftime with a score of 21-18.
The scoring slowed in the second half. With 4:55 remaining in the third quarter, Arlington Heights’ Grant bookended the game. He scored both the first and last points for the Yellow Jackets. The final score was 25-21 with Arlington Heights taking home their first win of the season.
James said his team is hungry and young.
“When you’re young and hungry, you can do some things,” James said.
In week two, Arlington Heights will travel to Sprague Stadium to take on Dallas Pinkston on Thursday.
Neiman Page with the Bulldogs said his team has a plan before their next game against Stephenville at home on Sept. 6.
“Work harder at practice and keep working,” Page said.
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