Westbrook holds off May in state title game classic
ARLINGTON, Texas — The big stage of AT&T Stadium was not too big for Westbrook as the Wildcats beat May 72-66 in their first state championship game appearance.
Cedric Ware ran for 304 yards and seven touchdowns and Jimmy Roberts knocked away the potential game winning touchdown pass with :02 left in the game to help Westbrook complete the upset of a Tiger team that had been ranked number one in the state for a majority of the season.
Westbrook’s Cedric Ware hurdles his own teammate in the first half
“We’re beyond excited,” said Wildcat head coach Homer Matlock after the game. “First time coming we knew we had a tough test against May, but we believed. We believed that we could compete with anybody. We never gave up on that. Even all the way to the last play. As coaches we’re sitting there talking about do we let them score so that we have some time to come back and score with some time on the clock. What do we do? Many times this season we’ve had that discussion and we just put it in the hands of the defense and said take us home. Jimmy made an amazing play to knock that ball out at the end to secure that state victory.”
May, down 72-66, had eaten much of the fourth quarter clock and set themselves up with a fourth-and-five at the Westbrook eight-yard line with 11 seconds to play. On fourth down they went to the air, and it looked like Blake Harrell found Kaysen King for the game winning score, but Roberts punched the ball free and the referees, after review, confirmed that the pass was incomplete.
“I have to knock it down. I have to do something,” Roberts said when asked what was going through his mind on the final play. The senior made many big plays in the game, racking up 4.5 tackles on defense and running for 68 yards on offense.
Westbrook’s Jimmy Roberts breaks up May’s fourth down pass in the final seconds
May head coach Craig Steele said, “We get down the field and had options to either use time outs and save time in case we didn’t score or take it down to the end. I felt like we were exhausted and felt like Westbrook was exhausted and I thought the right move was to take it down and hope we scored last. The original play wasn’t there. The original play was to go to Kaden (Halk) in the corner and the safety picked him up. Our kids know, they’ve kind of got an internal clock for how long these plays are supposed to last, that play went too long and that’s when Kaysen leaked out to the back of the end zone. He was open, the kid just came down real hard on his arms and made it incomplete.”
Ware proved to be a force on both sides of the ball, winning the offensive and defensive MVP awards voted on by the media. He led the way with 12 tackles and forced a pair of fumbles as well.
A key stretch in the game came midway through the third quarter when Westbrook scored, recovered an onside kick and scored again to turn a 60-52 deficit into a 66-60 lead. The Wildcats then got a defensive stop and scored again to extend the advantage to 72-60 heading into the fourth quarter. “When we got that onside, huge,” said Matlock. “That was a big turning point in the game for us.”
“It’s one of those games that comes down to getting stops and one key stop changed the whole thing,” said Steele.
The Wildcats jumped out to a 22-8 first quarter lead, showing they would not be intimidated by the tradition rich Tigers. Matlock said, “Our scout was that sometimes May doesn’t get off to the fastest starts. We thought if we could come out and execute quickly, we might catch them off guard a little bit and our kids answered to that and got after it.”
The Tigers answered with an eight-yard Kaden Halk touchdown run that proved to be the only score of the fourth quarter with 8:32 to play.
May’s Avery Williford busts off a 50-yard touchdown run in the first quarter
Halk and Avery Williford were hard to stop for the Tigers — Halk ran for 171 yards and three touchdowns and Williford racked up 170 and three scores. Halk led May with 8.5 tackles and Williford added seven to go along with a pair of pass break ups.
May (14-1) comes up a win shy of a championship for a second straight season and falls to 1-6 in state title games. “That’s the hard part,” said Steele. “These kids worked really hard and they made it their mission to get back and change the outcome. They came literally within an inch of doing that and that’s a hard pill to swallow. I’m extremely proud of their effort. We lost nine seniors off last year’s team and we found a way to get back.”
May’s Kaden Halk picks up big yardage in the fourth quarter
Westbrook jumped into the conversation of being an elite squad in 2020 when they made it all the way to the quarterfinals. They got off to a rough start in 2021 against a very tough schedule but never gave in. “I’m super proud of these guys and the work we put in and where we’ve come from. 2-4 to state champs, not a bad turnaround,” said Matlock.
The Wildcats may be new to the state championship stage, but this win changes things for their program and their town going forward. Matlock said, "It’s unbelievable what it does for our community. We’ve got little kids talking to these guys about, “I’m going to do that.” They’re so excited and they don’t even know what they’re talking about yet. They don’t have a clue, they’ve never been here, but they can’t say that now. It’s huge.”
