Saturday, November 8, 1997
Cooper 24, Odessa High 14By LANCE FLEMING / Abilene Reporter-News
ODESSA -- The long wait is over; the Cooper Cougars are District 4-5A champions.
The fourth-ranked Cougars ended an 18-year drought Friday night at Ratliff Stadium, beating Odessa High, 24-14, to earn their first district football championship since 1979. It's Cooper's first-ever 4-5A title because in 1979 the Cougars were part of District 5-4A.
The Cougars, who went 6-0 in district play, now advance to the Class 5A Division II bi-district playoffs where they will take on Amarillo Tascosa next Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Texas Tech's Jones Stadium. The Bronchos will play Lubbock Coronado next Friday at Ratliff in the Division I playoffs.
The Cougars, who reached the state championship game last season, accomplished one of the goals head coach Randy Allen set forth when he took over at his alma mater in 1991 and that's winning the district title.
And they celebrated the win in the dressing room by dousing Allen with water and spraying and toasting one another with sparkling grape juice.
"This feels great, and it brings with it a lot of pride," Allen said, moments after being showered with an ice-cold water bucket. "When you haven't had something in 18 years you don't really know what it means. But I hope that we take this district championship and the district bell and represent our school and our district with the same class we've played with all year."
The Cougars played with more than that in the decisive second half of Friday's championship game.
Cooper led 10-7 at halftime, then opened the second half with an impressive 10-play, 82-yard drive. The Cougars did it mostly on the ground with Mark Rau picking up 19 yards on a wide receiver screen, Richard Rodriguez running for 19 more and quarterback Dowell Loggains picking up 12 yards.
But the biggest play of the drive came on fourth-and-4 from the Odessa High 36-yard line. Cooper lined up in punt formation, but the snap went to upback Coby Ford, who handed off to Kyle Wiskow, who danced 17 yards down to the OHS 19-yard line.
Two plays later, Robbie Johnson scored from 8 yards out on option right, giving the Cougars a 17-7 advantage with 7:55 left in the third quarter.
"We wanted to come out in the second half and pound on them," CHS right tackle Joey Heath said. "We got in the 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust mode and it worked for us."
The TD was set up by the fake punt, which was one of a couple of gadgets -- along with a pass from Rau to Jesse Sharp -- that the Cougars pulled out.
"We go into every game with those plays ready to go," Allen said. "They were really keying some of our better plays, and we felt we needed to do something to get them off-balance. Those plays have to be executed properly to work, and they were."
But the Bronchos answered on their second possession of the half, driving 55 yards on eight plays to a Freddy Espinoza 2-yard touchdown run. That made the score 17-14 with 1:01 to play in the third quarter and the game was on.
"The defense came off the field kind of disappointed," Heath said, "but we told them we were going to go right back out and score."
And the Cougars did.
Using the big-play combination of Loggains to receiver Adam Riddle, the Cougars marched smartly from their own 20-yard line to a touchdown. Loggains -- playing his fourth straight gutsy ballgame -- hit Riddle for 37 yards down to the OHS 32-yard line on second-and-11. Riddle made a great diving catch to haul in the pass.
Five plays later Loggains hit Riddle again for 10 yards to the 6-yard line, and on the next play he threw a floater in the back corner of the end zone that Riddle somehow came down with for the touchdown. Peter Abrigg tacked on the extra point and the Cougars had a secure 24-14 lead with 9:01 left in the game.
Abrigg then ended the next Broncho drive with his third interception of the game, giving the Cougars the ball back at the OHS 43-yard line. Cooper was stopped on fourth-and-1 at the OHS 11-yard line, but the Bronchos would do nothing after that.
Abrigg and the rest of the defense turned in an outstanding performance, especially in the second half. Espinoza racked up 121 yards in the first half, but had just 32 in the second half.
The Bronchos had 292 yards of offense, but a mere 118 of that in the second half.
"We made big plays on both sides of the ball tonight," said Abrigg, whose three interceptions were one short of the district record for interceptions in a game. "We knew we had to create some turnovers to win this game, and we got four of them. And then the offense came out and answered their score in the second half with a touchdown, and that was a big key. Defensively, we needed that, and it gave us a big boost."
Neither team scored in the first quarter, but Cooper blew an opportunity when Johnson fumbled on the OHS 41-yard line. On their next possession, however, the Cougars moved to the OHS 1-yard line with a first-and-goal before another Johnson fumble -- this time recovered by Loggains -- pushed them back to the 6-yard line.
Two plays later, Abrigg drilled his 11th field goal of the season, a 37-yarder to give CHS a 3-0 lead with 11:19 left in the first half.
Abrigg ended the Bronchos' next possession with his first interception of the game, but the Cougars were forced to punt.
OHS then took the ball and drove 81 yards in eight plays to a 23-yard touchdown pass from Rick Leach to Jason Waters. Cooper safety David O'Shields, normally a sure tackler, bounced off Waters at the 20-yard line, and the OHS tight end rumbled into the end zone to give his team a 7-3 lead with 4:09 left in the half.
But Cooper answered with a big play of its own.
On third-and-9 from his 23-yard line, Loggains found Rodriguez sprinting all alone down the middle of the field. Loggains hit him in stride and Rodriguez did the rest, going 77 yards for a score and a 10-7 CHS lead.
The Bronchos thought the Cougars were offsides on the play and most of them quit on the play. It turned out, however, that the Bronchos were offsides and Cooper declined the penalty.
OHS had a chance to score just before halftime, but didn't play the final 45 seconds very well. The Bronchos, who had two timeouts, instead chose to spike the ball on two first-down plays, leaving them long yardage on second down.
Linebacker Eric Gobert then sacked Leach for a 14-yard loss, driving the Bronchos back to the 34-yard line. Instead of taking a timeout, the Bronchos let 20 seconds run off the clock before finally taking a timeout with 7 seconds left in the half. Leach was then intercepted in the end zone by Abrigg as the half expired.
That set up the second half, which Cooper won with the two long touchdown drives.
"Cooper's too good of a team right now," OHS head coach Randy Quisenberry said. "We made some mistakes, and they made plays when they had to have them. We just couldn't make the plays to stop them. They deserve to be district champions."
And it's a championship that's been a long time in coming.
"This is big," Heath said. "In my three years on varsity, I've done a lot of things. I've been to the state championship game, I've been all-district and all-state and all that stuff. But I've never been a district champion ... until now. The only thing left for this team is the state championship, and now we have to go get it."
Cooper 0 10 7 7--24
Odessa 0 7 7 0--14
SCORING SUMMARY
CHS -- Peter Abrigg 27 field goal
OHS -- Jason Waters 23 pass from Rick Leach (Jason Ramirez kick)
CHS -- Richard Rodriguez 77 pass from Dowell Loggains (Abrigg kick)
CHS -- Robbie Johnson 8 run (Abrigg kick)
OHS -- Freddy Espinoza 2 run (Ramirez kick)
CHS -- Adam Riddle 6 pass from Loggains (Abrigg kick)
Cooper Odessa
First downs 19 16
Rushes-yards 37-194 37-208
Passing yards 216 84
Comp-Att-Int 11-16-0 10-22-3
Punts 2-29.5 2-35.5
Fumbles-lost 2-1 1-1
Penalties-yards 4-30 3-15
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING -- Cooper: Robbie Johnson 17-73, Richard Rodriguez 10-54, Mark Rau 1-16, Kyle Wiskow 1-17, Dowell Loggains 8-34. Odessa: Freddy Espinoza 23-153, Kyle Willey 3-29, Rick Leach 8-27, Scotty Pence 3-(-1).
PASSING -- Cooper: Dowell Loggains 10-15-0, 199 yards; Rau 1-1-0, 17 yards. Odessa: Leach 10-22-3, 84 yards.
RECEIVING -- Cooper: Rau 4-52, Jesse Sharp 1-17, Adam Riddle 3-53, Andy Rodgers 2-17, Richard Rodriguez 1-77. Odessa: Scotty Pence 3-1, Chad Webster 1-13, Espinoza 2-20, Willey 3-27, Jason Watters 1-23.