THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Permian High School Athletics

Going up against perennial powerhouse Southlake Carroll, the Permian football team was dealt a 48-7 loss to the Dragons Friday night at Ratliff Stadium. Southlake Carroll (3-0) used a strong second quarter to build a 31-point halftime lead after a close first quarter and the Panthers simply couldn’t get much going. “I thought we played a four quarter game,” Southlake Carroll head coach Riley Dodge said. “We traveled well and I thought our guys treated it like it was a business trip. They were pretty mature about it. We loved the energy and we did a good job.” Permian (0-3) entered the matchup hoping to get revenge on the Dragons after last year’s 24-20 loss at Southlake Carroll. The visitors from the Metroplex, however, kept up their unbeaten start to the season while the Panthers were left still searching for their first win in the 2019 campaign. “First off, I got to thank Southlake Carroll and its organization,” said Permian head coach Jeff Ellison. “They’re a really good team and they have some great football players.” The game didn’t go off without some light interference from Mother Nature. Multiple lighting delays forced the game’s original start time to be delayed by nearly an hour. It wasn’t until around 7:24 when both teams were allowed back onto the field for the pregame warm-ups and the game didn’t kickoff until 7:57, nearly an hour from the original start time. Ironically, both teams had to deal with a similar situation in Southlake in the meeting last season. “We try to stay locked in during the rain delay and we didn’t let that phase us very much,” Southlake Carroll quarterback Quinn Ewers said. “We were pretty locked in.” “We had three or four of them last year and we had one against Permian last year at our place,” Dodge said. “It was nothing new for us. We didn’t let there be any adversity. We played pretty well. The Dragons got going with a 32-yard field goal by Joe McFadden with 4:33 left in the first quarter to give the visitors an early lead. Through the first 12 minutes, the Panthers managed to hold the Dragons’ lead by that margin as the defense kept the high-powered offense in check. After a slow first quarter, Southlake Carroll got a big scoring burst and ran off 28 straight points to pull away. The run started thanks to sophomore quarterback Quinn Ewers, who earned the first Southlake Carroll touchdown on a 23-yard run within the first minute of the quarter and extended the lead to 10-0. Ewers then got it done through it the air throwing three touchdown passes to three different receivers. The first strike came when he connected with Landon Samson on a 45-yard pass with 8:01 left in the first half. The second came on the ensuing Carroll drive as Ewers hooked up with Brady Boyd on a 56-yard touchdown reception with 4:23 left in the half. Receiver Willis Meyer got his turn down the closing stretch of the half as he hauled in a 19-yard reception to build a comfortable lead for the Dragons. As for Permian, the offense had a tough time getting anything going in the first half. Through the first two quarters, all five of the Panthers’ drives ended with Carson Roberts punts and only managed 31 yards of total offense. Carroll picked up right where it left off in the second half as Ewers threw his fourth touchdown pass of the night, finding John Manero from 26 yards out to open the half. Ewers used his legs again to find the end zone as he scored on a 2-yard run late in the third quarter. McFadden added a 31-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to cap the scoring. Alex Rose scored the Panthers’ only touchdown of the night on the second play of the fourth quarter to get on the board but the deficit proved to be too much to overcome. “We’re going to continue to get better,” Ellison said. “Obviously, the scoreboard didn’t show it on Friday night. But there were things early on in the game that I saw that was good. “I thought our intensity was better than it was in the last couple of weeks. There are things out there that we can grow and learn from. Whether it’s a win or a loss, we’re going to learn from them.”

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Permian High School Athletics

PERMIAN STYMIED BY BIG PLAYS FROM SOUTHLAKE CARROLL

MICHAEL BAUER

Odessa American | 9/13/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Odessa American