MASON, TX — A beautiful Thursday night in Mason turned sour early for the defending Class 2A Division 1 State Champion Punchers as the Wall Hawks started their 2019 campaign with a bang. Mason kicked things off with a UIL Lone Star Cup presentation to get the football juices flowing, but that is where the good times ended for the home team.
Wall received the opening kick and immediately gave the ball back with a punt after a quick first down. Junior Mason quarterback Matthew Kerr mishandled the handoff on the first play of the drive, and the ball floated into a waiting Wall Hawk defender’s hands who returned it to the Mason 9 yard line. On the next play, senior Wall quarterback Mason Fuchs connected with a wide open receiver on a rollout to the right for a touchdown.
From that point on it was all Wall.
Led by defensive tackle Stuart Bumann and a front line that stifled the run game for Mason, the Wall defense seemed to not give up as much as a first down in the first half. "We made them want to quit," Junior Tate Williams said post game.
Two long touchdown runs on back to back possessions by Chase Rios and Cinch Dickey, 40 and 68 yards respectively, made the score 21-0 before the end of the first quarter.
Mason finally made it into the redzone after a beautiful 25 yard pass from Kerr along the sideline for a fourth down conversion, and it looked like the Punchers would get on the scoreboard but the Wall defense forced another fourth down. A Mason false start turned 4th and 3 into 4th and 8 and Mason was unable to convert.
The final touchdown of the first half came after a Kerr interception at midfield. Wall strung together a series of runs by junior Kye Herbert and senior Grady McCrea that put them inside the five. Fuchs capped it off with a quarterback keeper with 35 seconds to make it 27-0 going into halftime.
The second half was much of the same. Mason could not get anything rolling on offense, and Wall could move at will on offense.
Fuchs threw the ball extremely well and managed a powerful ground attack for Wall. He finished with 2 passing touchdowns and added another on the ground.
Mason’s only touchdown came after they recovered a Wall fumble in great field position and Kerr ran it in on a sneak.
Final score Wall Hawks 47 Mason Punchers 7.
Subscribe to the LIVE! Daily
Required
Post a comment to this article here: