Game-by-Game Narratives
2005

Week Five: at McNeil
Saturday, October 1st

Timberwolves 24, Mavericks 0

Making themselves at home again in the Parmer Palace, Cedar Park hit a Saturday night fever pitch and rang up a quick 21-0 lead on former district contender McNeil, then used its stone cold defense to rock the stunned Mavericks with a shutout for the second consecutive year in a thoroughly dominating 24-0 win that wasn’t as close as that score doesn’t sound.

It was the second shutout of the season for the Gang Green, and the eighth in Cedar Park history, twenty-five percent of those now coming over McNeil.

Five days earlier, McNeil was a major player in the race for the district 15-5A crown, starting the season 3-0 and holding a 28-7 fourth quarter lead on league favorite Leander in their district opener. But the bottom fell out with a massively unlikely Lion comeback overtime win Monday night, followed by outright subjugation from Cedar Park Saturday night.

As the sun sets behind it, the Permer Palace Jumbotron shows the names of some of the Cedar Park defense during the pregame. These would be some of the stars visible that evening, as the Gang Green pitched a shutout against a very potent Maverick offense. (The Palace staff had Knicky's and M'Maitsi's positions transposed)

Meanwhile, the Timberwolves got right back onto the post-season express with a critical win over a team that was considered likely to compete with them for a playoff slot. The Timberwolves were now 3-2 overall, 1-1 in district play, while McNeil dropped to 3-2 and 0-2, their playoff hopes being swept away through the streets like so much tsunami flotsam.

The Timberwolf offense made the most of a few great plays and the defense got into the scoring column as well on a night when Cedar Park punched the Mavericks in the stomach with three quick scores and then willingly played along with the premise that you should still stay out on the field the rest of the evening, just in case.

In this battle of the two farthest-advancing central Texas 5A playoff teams from last season (both made their Regional Finals), the Gang Green defense kept their heel on McNeil’s larynx all night long, never even letting the Mavericks get close. The Timberwolf D has now allowed only two offensive touchdowns in the last three games. While you’re considering that, think about the fact that Leander’s defense has been widely considered the best in 15-5A, even one of the best in Texas… and just a few days ago the Lions gave up a full 28 regulation points – plus ten more in OT – to this same team Cedar Park just handily shut out. Not only that, but the most recent loss prior to Monday night for McNeil was to 5A Division I state champion Tyler Lee- by just a touchdown at the end of last season. The Mavericks still have the vast majority of the talent from that team on this year’s squad. Interesting to think about in light of Cedar Park’s complete rout?

You bet it is.

The Cedar Park option play onfolds. QB Travis Watson (7) reads the line for the give option to Matt Raesz (20). The trailing pitch option, Tyler Smith (5), moves into position as tight end Daniel Billingsley (87) and Austin Wilson (52) lock up their opponents.

Saturday night, the Timberwolves hit McNeil so hard the warranty’s no longer in effect. It was the worst McNeil loss since, well, the last time they played Cedar Park. That includes defeats to state-ranked Pflugerville, the 2004 state champs, and this year, a very good Leander team.

The stats don’t really paint an accurate picture of this game. For example, McNeil got quite a few more yards of total offense than Cedar Park: 252 to 216. But a closer look at the flow of the game reveals that most of that came way late, long after the Mavs were already hopelessly down by the 24-0 final margin.

In fact, at the moment Cedar Park won this game, which was the Brandon Haug 9-yard touchdown that all but closed the door on McNeil early in the second quarter, Cedar Park had 131 yards of net offensive ball movement to the Mavericks’ microscopic 18.

Fork time, in essence.

That Gang Green defense did a lot of this against the Mavs: bottle up their offense. Here, McNeil phenom Cameron Rogers goes nowhere, fast.

Sure, there were some important plays the rest of the way, but most of those came from the Gang Green defense as they continually snuffed out anything McNeil tried to get going. A desperation final drive in a failed attempt to avoid their second straight shutout at the hands of Cedar Park netted 64 yards of fruitless offense, and this possession carried McNeil’s final total past the Timberwolves. In fact, going into the final quarter the total yardage numbers were 216-110, Cedar Park almost having doubled the Maverick total at that point.

The game started inauspiciously with a Cedar Park three-and-out. Haug’s punt was artfully returned up the far sideline, but fumbled away and the T’wolves were back in business. On that possession, starting CP quarterback Travis Watson left the game momentarily and backup Daniel Dilworth was sent in for his first career varsity snap: two of them, in fact. The first was his first career attempt and completion, a non-descript one-yarder to running back Tyler Smith. The second was a trifle more noteworthy.

Dilworth faded back and looked deep for Smith, who was loosely covered about 35 yards down the left sideline. The pass was floated beautifully, enticing the Maverick DB to try for the pick, cutting in front of Smith as both leaped high for the ball. He failed, and Smith came down with it in the clear, racing untouched the rest of the way for a quick Cedar Park lead just 3:34 into the game. Wes Wagener’s 50th consecutive extra point made it 7-0 Timberwolves.

Daniel Dilworth came in at QB just long enough to throw the second-longest touchdwon pass in Cedar Park history. This is the moment he launched it downfield to a waiting Tyler Smith. The play covered 65 yards.

Ah, but we’d seen 7-0 leads before. Actually, we’ve had one in every game this year, except Westwood, and in that one Wagener inserted a short field goal ahead of the initial touchdown to make it 10-0. And every time but one, we’d lost that initial lead, and twice lost the game.

Our boys knew that, and they were determined this time to keep the pedal to the metal. But McNeil was able to generate some offense on their first real possession, in fact they struck for 35 yards, a third of all the offense they’d get before the fourth quarter. Actually, most of that came on the first play from scrimmage for the Mavs on the night, a 29-yard run by their excellent back Cameron Rogers. All for naught, though, as they ended up punting it away. That was the first of two consecutive back-and-forth punt exchanges by the two teams.

Timberwolf tailback Tyler Smith gets loose. Smith had 140 yards of total offense on nineteen touches.

Late in the first quarter, on a second-and-seven from the Cedar Park 40, Mavs quarterback Jadrien Parker shot a quick pitch much too hard at his running back who fumbled it heading into the line. Dilworth scooped it up on the run at the 45 and headed for the goal, 55 yards away, with Parker in pursuit. Dilworth cut inside him at the ten and went into the end zone. Wagener’s kick made it 14-0 Timberwolves with 1:23 left in the first quarter. It was the third-longest fumble return in Cedar Park history.

Dilworth strikes on defense, as well. Here, he takes off with a fumble recovery. Mav QB Jadrien Parker (2) caught up to him at about the ten, but Dilworth cut behind Parker and scored. The 55-yard play was the third longest fumble return in Timberwolf history.

At this point, McNeil’s offense had run nine plays for 29 yards. And don’t forget that their first play went for…. well, all 29 of those yards! The Gang Green held them to zero yards in their next eight plays, while Cedar Park built their suffocating lead. Astounding.

There were wonderful performances all around on defense this night, from Tim Knicky - still piling up the sack count - to great hits by Haug and Andrew Cretini, to smothering pass coverage by Brandon Lopez, Randy M’maitsi, and Dilworth. Everyone on the defensive side of the ball played tremendously.

Tim Knicky, Sack Machine. Here the Knickmesiter corrals McNeil quarterback Jadrien Parker, who suffered repeatedly on the evening at the hands of the Timberwolf pass rush.

And with that multiple-touchdown lead, now the Gang Green smelled blood. They threw the Mav offense backwards nine yards in three plays on the ensuing possession, forcing another McNeil punt. At this point, they’d held the Mavs to minus nine yards in their previous eleven plays!

The offense then kicked it into high gear, with a three-play 41-yard scoring drive, highlighted by the performance of Haug out of the fullback slot. On the second play of the quick drive, Haug got his first carry of the night, and promptly busted it up the middle for 26 yards and a first and goal at the nine. Coach Ross called his number again, and Haug took it into the end zone on the very next play. It was his third touchdown of the year, his second on offense. With Wagener’s 52nd straight PAT, the score stood at 21-0 Timberwolves, not yet two minutes into the second quarter.

With their 131-22 yardage advantage, Cedar Park basically went into “energy conservation mode” the rest of the evening, teasing the Mavericks defensively until the final horn sounded. The Mavs tried to get something going following the third CP touchdown, moving 44 yards to the CP 36, but Brandon Lopez made a leaping interception in the middle of the field to put the brakes to that threat.

Timberwolf LB Andrew Cretini (42) lunges for McNeil QB Jadrien Parker. McNeil tried everything in the playbook, including a fake punt, but could never crack the Cedar Park defense.

Wagener got some long field goal chances with a decent breeze coming over his right shoulder. The same wind that guided nearly all of his kickoffs deep into the left corner of the end zone didn’t treat his field goal kicks so kindly. One from 47 yards out with 3:40 left in the first half had enough leg to go from sixty, but it hit the left upright a good twenty-five feet above the ground and bounced back into the end zone. At the end of that drive, Cedar Park was up on McNeil in the ball-movement yardage numbers 170-66. Another Wagener attempt from 42 yards out with 43 seconds left in the third quarter was also plenty long enough, but just wide left.

Wagener did nail a 37-yarder a few minutes earlier, at the 4:26 mark of the third quarter, what would turn out to be the final points of the game.

In their desperation, McNeil even tried a fake punt. It was snuffed out for little gain and cost the Mavs points, leaving the ball at the CP 26 and leading to Wagener’s third-quarter field goal.

Despite getting some yardage improvement out of their second-half offense, McNeil never got close to scoring, their six second-half possessions ending in two punts and four failed fourthdown conversion attempts, including the failed fake punt. All three of the Mavs’ fourth-quarter possessions ended in failed fourth down attempts, the most spectacular one the first of the three, when a completed pass to a leaping Dominic Ayala turned Ayala into a human windmill, courtesy of a monster hit by Cedar Park’s Justin Hart.

The Cedar Park offensive huddle. After pounding out yardage and points in the game's first 20 minutes, the offense went into a more conservative clock-running mode most of the rest of the game, and very successfully. Visible here are Daniel Billingsley (87), Austin WIlson (52), Travis Watson (7) and Jake Morrow (65).

The only real bright spot for the Mavericks was Rogers’ 104 yards rushing on 22 carries. But even that was bittersweet: on nine of his carries, the Gang Green held him to one yard or less, and nearly thirty percent of his total for the night came on his very first carry. Parker went 12 of 29 through the air, with one interception and just 83 yards. Backup Chase Markette came on for the final possession and threw eight times in a nine-play drive that moved 64 yards to the Cedar Park 17 – far and away the closest McNeil ever got to the goal line – but an incomplete pass on fourth down sealed the shutout. Prior to that final drive, McNeil had only penetrated past the CP 40 once, and that one ended at the 36 with Lopez’ interception.

Haug’s punting was superb, averaging over 40 yards a kick, the longest a 63-yarder that greatly changed the field position trends at the time. Despite Wagener’s tough time with the field goal kicks in that crosswind, his kickoffs were tremendous, allowing only one return in five kicks, and his amazing extra point streak is still alive.

Smith’s 73 yards on 17 carries led the T’wolf ground attack, and The T was also on the receiving end of every Cedar Park passing yard – all 67 of them – on two catches. The Timberwolf passing game has some work to do, as this was the first game in CP history that the starting QB completed no passes, and it was also the school record for the fewest total team completions in a game. A very bright spot for the offense was the efficiency with which they turned big plays into points. Another was the very impressive complete remediation of the turnover problem: they committed zero turnovers for the first time since the season opener.

Taking a breather from the tough task of stuffing McNeil, T'wolves Thomas Metz (51) and Jeremy Nadeau (71) confer on the sidelines.

In the three games the program has ever played at this amazing Round Rock ISD facility, Timberwolf football teams have now outscored their opponents 85-7, and wrung up two shutouts over the Palace’s “home teams” Westwood (26-0 in 2004) and McNeil (this 2005 24-0 win). For good measure, they lethally injected the Copperas Cove Bulldogs in the 2004 Area Round playoff game here 35-7, as well. It is quickly becoming our favorite place to play, being closer to most T’wolf fan’s homes even than our own home stadium, Bible Memorial.

McNeil has not scored on Cedar Park since Sept 26, 2003. Despite the recent full-throated success by the Gang Green with two shutouts of the Mavericks in two years, the all-time series between the two teams now stands at two wins for Cedar Park and four for McNeil: no team in Cedar Park history has beaten the Timberwolves more often.

All the more sweet this victory.

Next up would be a resurgent Stony Point team that was trying to put its first winning streak together in over four years. The Tigers won on this same Saturday for the first time in 23 games, dating back to early 2003. Just hours before our game at the Palace, The Point beat (grit your teeth, CP fans) Westwood.

This most certainly would not be the relatively light game we’ve come to expect in the past.