The Herald-Zeitung

SAN ANTONIO — It’s hard to be humble when a football team plays like the New Braunfels Unicorns performed on Friday.

Facing the defending state champs, the Unicorns made dethroning the Alamo Heights Mules look easy, dominating all phases of the game to topple the Mules 35-3 in the teams’ Class 4A-Region IV regional semifinal before 5,255 at Dub Farris Stadium.

The win not only avenged last year’s 31-21 loss to the Mules in last year’s regional, but sent the fifth-ranked Unicorns (12-0) on to the Region I title game against either Gregory-Portland (7-4) or Corpus Christi Flour Bluff (8-3), who play at 7:30 p.m. tonight in Corpus Christi. Alamo Heights (10-2), which lost for only the second time in 26 outings, saw its championship reign come to an abrupt end.

New Braunfels got three passing touchdowns by quarterback Ryan Perez, who shook off a slow start to complete five of seven second-half passes for 100 yards. Two of his strikes went to tight end Spencer Jergins, and Perez added a one-yard score of his own early in the fourth quarter.

The story of the game, however, is shared by the Unicorns offensive line and the “swarm” defense. The former opened holes wild enough for interstate passage and the latter hounded Heights quarterback Drew Allen all night long, sacking him four times and intercepting him twice.

“We knew that the road to where we want to go goes through Alamo Heights,” New Braunfels coach Chuck Caniford said. “(We) came ready to play tonight.”

New Braunfels’ offensive strategy changed for this one, as the Unicorns wore down the Mules with long drives concentrated on the ground. Perez totaled 71 yards and Patrick Castilleja had 76 yards as the Unicorns totaled 172 yards on 38 attempts.

“We’re a spread team, but if you look at our statistics, you can see that we like to run,” Caniford added. “And we know that our offensive line is the strength of what we do and that our backs can run pretty well.”

That line — comprised of starters Kyle Polk, Jake Johnson, Ryan Walker, Josh Knudson and Marcus Stager — held court on Friday. Together they helped the Unicorns convert nine of 17 times on third down and allowed only one sack of Perez.

“They had us outmanned up front, so we had to throw the ball a little more than we wanted to,” Heights coach Don Byrd said. “They just made plays, that’s about all I could say. Our kids had a great season, but New Braunfels came ready to play. They had some very talented kids on defense — the two linebackers in particular.”

New Braunfels’ Tom Wort and Ryan Grametbaur were those two guys, and they joined Jergins, playing on defense, to disrupt rhythm and prevent Heights from establishing any kind of momentum after the first quarter.

“It’s the best thing ever — we were underdogs going into this game and in the San Antonio paper every one of them picked Alamo Heights to win,” said Wort, whose interception set the Unicorns up for their final score, a 1-yard plunge by Perez with 7:05 to go in the game. “But we came out and showed them we could play football.”

It got to a point where Heights’ vaunted receiving corps stopped catching passes. Several were dropped in both halves, leading to Allen’s 18 of 42 performance that netted just 164 yards all night. The Mules were held out of the end zone for the first time since early in the 2005 season. Receivers Bobby Broadnax and Cody Courtney, who were all over the field in last year’s win over the Unicorns, were nonfactors as they combined to snare nine passes for 73 yards.

“We noticed that they’re a 7-on-7 kind of team, with receivers that really like to run free,” Jergins said. “We jammed them up at the line of scrimmage and made them play more physical than they’re used to playing.”

The Unicorns established themselves in the first half. In seven first-half possessions, all the Mules could show for their troubles was a 35-yard field goal by Andrew Bailey. The Unicorns moved the ball with ease in the first half, scoring on three of their first four possessions and capping the first-half scoring with a 15-play, 76-yard drive that made it 21-3 by halftime.

Perez wasn’t at his best throwing — he completed only 5 of 13 passes for 33 yards before the break — but two of those went for scores. It all started on Castilleja’s 59-yard TD run — he slashed through a gaping hole created by linemen Knudson and Stager — and into the open field to give New Braunfels a 7-0 lead with 8:17 left in the first.

Greg Laird’s interception of Allen at midfield was returned to Heights’ 24 and from there the Unicorns needed just five plays, as Perez caught Tanner Brown ahead of defender Jacob Aguirre for a 17-yard score. Hayduk’s PAT made it 14-0 with 2:37 left in the quarter.

The Mules finally got unglued on their next possession, driving from their 27 to the New Braunfels 18. Allen, however, misfired on three straight plays and Heights had to settle for a Bailey’s field goal.

New Braunfels, though, got a jolt by its defense, which held the Mules to punts on their next two possessions, The Unicorns got it back with 6:41 to play in the half, stuck on their own 26.

New Braunfels proceeded to wear down the Mules, with Perez, Castilleja and Brown taking turns. Perez converted a third-and-four with a 5-yard pass to Jergins — one of five such conversions in 10 tries in the first half — and added a 12-yard run of his own, draggling would-be tacklers to the Heights 7.

Two plays later and with time winding down in the half, Perez found Jergins on a five-yard score over the middle. It gave the Unicorns a 21-3 lead, and completed a dominant performance over the first 24 minutes.