MESQUITE - Rowlett coach Doug Stephens will pay his penance with a pair of socks.
After his call for a trick play went awry, putting Rowlett in jeopardy in the closing minutes of its 6A Division I Region II area round game against Skyline, Stephens called on linebacker Jalen Penn for a favor. If Penn, one of the team's field-goal block specialists, could get his hands on Skyline's game-tying attempt, any garish pair of socks - a la Robert Griffin III's Superman socks from his Heisman ceremony - would be his.
No problem. Penn stuffed the 34-yard attempt with 19 seconds remaining, sealing a 24-21 win at Mesquite Memorial Stadium and securing a trip to the third round for only the second time in school history.
"Now, I owe him a pair of those RG3 socks," Stephens said with a chuckle.
Junior LaDarius Dickens caught six passes for 122 yards and added a rushing touchdown for Rowlett (10-2), which will face Humble Atascocita (11-1) in the regional round at 1 p.m. Saturday at Waco's McLane Stadium. It is first time in Rowlett's 20-year history to register double-digit wins.
With less than three minutes remaining and driving into a brutal north wind, Rowlett went for it on 4th and 8 at the Skyline 28-yard line, instead of trying what would have been a difficult field-goal attempt. Skyline was out of timeouts, so a first down would allow Rowlett to run out the clock, a score would certainly clinch a win, and a turnover on downs would still leave Skyline (9-3) plenty of work to do.
So, Stephens decided to go for it, calling a trick play that Rowlett had been working on this week: a reverse throw-back to quarterback Logan Bonner.
It didn't go well. Skyline safety Markeveon Coleman read the play, intercepting the pass and returning it 48 yards to the Rowlett 32 with 2:27 remaining.
"That's on me," Stephens said of the call. "But those guys stepped up and saved me."
Rowlett's defense was challenged by Skyline senior running back Da'Leon Ward, who rushed for 291 yards and three scores, but it rose to the late challenge. Skyline advanced the ball to Rowlett's seven-yard line, only to have a low snap to quarterback Terreon Randolph result in a five-yard loss. On the following play, Jarrod Elmore nearly sacked Randolph, forcing an incompletion.
Skyline sent out its field-goal team, but didn't get the snap off in time, penalized five more yards for the delay. It then switched its kickers before its final snap.
Penn easily reached the field-goal attempt, coming unblocked from the right side of Skyline's formation.
"Didn't tip it; got my whole arm on it," Penn said.
Normally a fast-tempo, pass-heavy attack, Rowlett had to alter its game plan because of the wind - and Skyline defensive tackle Joe Wallace. Rowlett scored all of its 24 points with the wind at its back, and Bonner, one of the area's top quarterbacks, passed for nearly 100 yards under his season average. Wallace terrorized Bonner throughout, and knocked 1,500-yard rusher Kobe Morrow out of the game in the second quarter after a hard tackle.
Twitter: @corbettsmithDMN
