Stephenville reaches ‘Sweet 16’ at Adidas 7v7 Championship

By BRAD KEITH

TheFlashToday.com NEWS & SPORTS – FREE & LOCAL

BRYAN (July 10, 2015) — Stephenville survived a stingy Brady squad in round one, but couldn’t keep up with China Spring in the round of 16 of Division II championship bracket play at the Adidas 7v7 Championship in Veterans Park Friday morning.

A pick six by Mason Yoes was the biggest play in the 33-31 win over Burnet, which ended with a pass breakup by Mason Holstein. Twice Brady caught passes on conversions after touchdowns only to fail to stretch the ball across the goal line.

Sophomore quarterback Easton Jones tossed five touchdowns in the win. He hit senior receiver and Division I prospect Josh Nowell for the first two and a 14-0 lead before Brady scored twice with an interception in between to cut it to 14-12. Jones hooked up with Malachi Taylor for a 20-12 lead that stood until the second half.

Brady scored with ease to cut it to 20-19, then the teams traded off stops before oft-penalized Stephenville returned to the end zone on the interception and return by Yoes.

Brady answered with a touchdown on fourth-and-goal, but like Stephenville before it, couldn’t add the PAT as the Yellow Jackets held on to a slim 26-25 lead. Jones connected with Matthew Chapman on a deep ball and tossed the one-point conversion to Darian Brown to push it to 33-25.

Brady answered once more with a deep ball of it’s own, but that finished the scoring as the two-point conversion failed on an incomplete pass. The Brady defense got a stop, but Holstein broke up a pass at the horn.

Jones hit Jace McLer0y with a TD strike to open the scoring in round two, but China Spring scored 14 straight points for a lead it would never relinquish. Jones and McLeroy used another scoring hookup to cut it to 14-13, but the conversion failed and China Spring scored twice before halftime for a 28-13 advantage.

Stephenville got a three-and-out then got a defensive stop of its own before China Spring made perhaps the biggest stand of the game. The Yellow Jackets were touched down inside the one yard line on a third-down play and the fourth-down pass fell incomplete.

Wasting no time taking advantage, China Spring went right to a deep post route for a TD and 34-13 lead that basically put the game out of reach. Stephenville did pull within 34-19 on a Jones-to-Chapman TD before China Spring scored on the final play.

Stephenville head coach Greg Winder can not coach the 7-on-7 team per UIL rules, but he was on hand to watch the tournament and had this to say about the performance of the Yellow Jackets: