The Knights (5-4, 3-3) beat the Crockett Cougars (4-5, 3-3) 42-3 at House Park on Thursday. With the win, the Knights have almost certainly earned a fourth-place spot in district and the state playoff berth that comes with it. Barring a win by Crockett against highly favored Dripping Springs (7-2, 5-1) and an upset win for Travis (0-8, 0-6) over McCallum, which has won 18 out the last 19 meetings between the two teams, the Knights will play Hutto in the first round of the 5A, D1 playoffs. The Knights offense was prolific against Crockett, scoring six touchdowns to Crockett’s lone field goal. Junior quarterback Cole Davis led the offense with three touchdowns on the night.

The Knights’ offense started quickly with a 30-yard touchdown run by Davis in the first quarter, followed on the next drive by a 7-yard run by Davis in the second quarter. The Knights defense was able to hold Crockett only to one field goal in the second quarter that made the score 14-3 in the second quarter. The Knights’ offense finished off the first half scoring with a rushing touchdown from one yard out from junior running back Jalen Sutton.

After the half, already leading by 18, the Knights continued to put up the points as they scored on a 10-yard run by Davis to complete his touchdown hat trick. The Knights would score twice more on a 59-yard sprint down the sideline by senior Deron Gage and a 5-yard rushing touchdown by Caleb Brown. For Brown, the score was his first touchdown as a varsity player.

“It felt great to finally get a touchdown,” Brown said after the game.  “I’m doing it [getting the win] for all the seniors since it’s their last night at House park. There were a lot of people who thought this wouldn’t be possible.”

The Knights hope to carry this momentum into this week’s matchup against Travis in the annual Battle of the Bell that dates back to the two schools’ founding in 1953. The Rebels were routed by LBJ, 63-0, at Nelson Field. McCallum is on a two-game winning streak going into Friday’s matchup.

“We all executed, we all did our job, and we did what we have to do to win,” Alvino Carbajal said after the game. ” This game was like a movie, and if we have a good week of practice this week our practice will show in what happens on the field.”

The Knights travel to Burger Stadium to play Travis on Friday this week, and will travel to Hutto (8-0, 5-0) to face the Hippos if they do make the 4th spot in district to go to playoffs.

The Knights will likely rely heavily on the running tandem of Jalen Sutton and Deron Gage going into next week against Travis to finish out the regular season and against Hutto in round one of the playoffs. Against Crockett, the team had 391 yards total offense, 372 of those yards coming on the ground.