The Blanco Panthers continued their dominant play in the first round of the state play-offs as they easily defeated the Stockdale Brahmas 42 to 7 to be crowned Bi-District Champions. Blanco used a balanced offensive attack to outgain the Brahmas by almost 300 yards, while the defense was just 28 seconds from its fifth shutout of the season.

Although Blanco controlled virtually every aspect of the game, it wasn’t until the second half that the Panthers took over. In the first half of play, the first quarter ended in a stale mate knotted at 0.

However, with less than three minutes to play in the half, Kevin Gray scored from three yards out to put Blanco on top. Following the first of six P.A.T.’s, Dal Dechert helped make the halftime score 7 to 0 in favor of Blanco.

After halftime, Blanco scored four times in the third quarter to put the game away. QB Derek Tesch bulled his way in from a yard out for the game’s second score. Anthony Vela followed on the next drive with an eight yard scoring run of his own.

Gray made his presence felt again on the Panthers’ next possession dashing 40 yards on the drive’s first play. Finally, with just seconds remaining in the quarter, Tesch found TE Travis McClinton for a 14 yard touchdown pass.

Blanco managed one more score in the fourth quarter on a Corey Dowlearn one yard run. Although Stockdale finally scored in the last few seconds of the game, the Panther victory was well at hand as the game ended 42 to 7.

On the offensive side of the ball, Sr. Kevin Gray made his return after a six week absence due to a broken collar bone suffered in the first district game against Randolph.

Upon his return, Gray lead all rushers with 79 yards on just nine carries, while scoring two times in addition to adding another 40 yards on four receptions. Layton Dworaczyk also ran strong picking up 76 yards, while Vela, Tesch, Dowlearn, and Hunter Elrod all contributed to a rushing attack that picked up almost 300 yards on the night. In the air, Tesch had another solid game completing 8 of 13 attempts for 132 yards and a TD.

Defensively, Blanco held Stockdale to just eight first downs and less than 150 yards in total offense while forcing six punts. In addition, the Panthers also forced the ball over on downs three different times.

With the win, Blanco improves to 11 and 0 and will move on to face the Hallettsville Brahmas, while Stockdale ends its season at 6 and 4.

Hallettsville comes into the game following a major upset of heavily favored Rogers. Rogers was 9 and 1 but couldn’t find the end zone against Hallettsville, who improved to 6 and 4 with a 9 to 0 win over the Eagles. Kick-off for the area play-off game is set for 7:30pm Friday at Seguin.

The winner of the Blanco vs. Hallettsville game will square off against the winner of Industrial (9-1) and Three Rivers (9-1) who will also play in Seguin on Saturday night.