McCallum (7-1, 3-1) escaped Burger Stadium with a 28-14 victory over Crockett in a game that was much closer than anyone expected it would be.
Crockett (0-7, 0-3) returned a fumble for the game’s opening score and executed a long drive for a touchdown that tied the game at 14. The score was still tied heading into the fourth quarter. The Cougars advanced to the Mac 10-yard line, but the defense held and turned the ball over on downs.
Deron Gage then broke the tie with a 90-yard touchdown run, and Mac never looked back from there.
Andre Blakemore rushed for his third touchdown of the game to make it a 28-14 final score.
“We didn’t play very well,” head coach Charles Taylor said after the game. “They tried to run the clock on us and keep the ball out of our hands. We came out a little flat. Our kids need to understand that you have to come out and execute no matter what the opponent looks like and play hard.”
The Knights had a bye last weekend. They face the Vikings of Lanier (1-6, 0-4), 7:30 p.m. this Friday at House Park.
Photos by Diego Gutierrez, Gregory James, Tony Lavorgna, Madison Olsen and Adrian Peña.
![A PRIDE-FUL WEEK OF CELEBRATION:
As part of AISDs week-long celebration of PRIDE, students of the McCallum Spectrum Club worked to create a week full of activities, prizes and helping hands to support the schools LGBTQ+ community. The club is widely available for anyone to join, and specializes in creating a safe space for students to share and give advice. While Pride month itself isn’t until June, AISD designates one week in March to celebrate and commemorate the importance of this part of the student body.
As part of the week of festivities, the club held a booth in the front hall handing out pride stickers, pins and merch to passers by. For junior Zane Joly, the booth idea was brought up as a way for students to engage with one another, and connect with the community.
“I call out to people in the halls, ‘hey, do you want stickers?’” Joly said. “We just give out free pride stickers and sometimes other free pride merch to the students of Macallum because everybody likes pride stickers.”
While the week itself is packed with a variety of different activities, the overall goal is to bring students closer together and create a safer environment for self expression at McCallum.
“The idea for the student panel largely came from the black [history] student panel that is done during Black History Month,” Joly said. “And the idea for giving out free stuff was developed at Spectrum last year.”
Joly is not only a member of the Spectrum club, but also holds a leadership position giving them a more hands-on role with the projects and Pride Week activities.
“McCallum has a very high queer population,” Joly said. “I think Its nice that we get a chance to celebrate Pride because Pride Month is during the summer, and I think its just a nice thing for the community and getting to just celebrate it.”
While the merch table at lunch was only a small part of the numerous parts of McCallum’s Pride week, for Joly this small impact made all the difference.
“The purpose of Pride is to make people not feel alone and to make them feel safe,” Joly said. “The goal is [to make people] happy about a part of themselves that theyre often conditioned to not feel good about.”
Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Shila Gill.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/53597258192_6e7168d8ae_o-1-1200x676.jpg)
