Friday, November 2, 2007

If the Decatur High School football team was going to beat Argyle Friday night, it had to come through with the same type of defensive performance that Bridgeport used last week to beat AHS 24-10.

That never happened. The Argyle Eagles' prolific passing game torched Decatur on its home turf for 649 yards of offense and they never punted en route to handing DHS its first district loss of the season, 47-35.

Decatur, which gave up 411 yards off offense in the first half, was never out of the game. In fact, a 6-yard touchdown by Matthew Huddleston with 6:25 left in the second quarter evened the score at 20-20.

Argyle, which got 438 yards passing from quarterback J.J. Harp, scored 10 points in the final four minutes of the half on a pass from Harp to Matt Handler and a 21-yard field goal by Ben Parks.

Decatur still found a way to pull within three points at halftime. Tim Metts hit a wide open Zak Zamzow for a 72-yard TD pass that made it a 30-27 game at halftime.

That was as close as it got. Argyle scored 17 second-half points and held DHS to 120 yards of total offense to hold on for the win.

Argyle scored the second most points allowed by Decatur in head coach Kyle Story's nine years. The most scored against DHS came in 2001 in a 49-14 loss to Graham.

The loss, which dropped Decatur to 3-1 in district play and 5-4 overall, created a three-way tie for first place with one game to go. Argyle moved to 3-1 and 7-2 and Bridgeport, which edged Sanger Friday night, also stands at 3-1 and 6-3.

Decatur, which has only lost two district games in the last five years, fell behind early in its final home game 10-0. Metts got DHS on the scoreboard when he hit Brennon Lemieux on a 75-yard pass. The kick failed, which made it 10-6.

The teams traded scores the rest of the first half, which took nearly two hours to play. Huddleston scored on TD runs of 5 and 6 yards to lead the local scoring.

Argyle got a pair of field goals from Parks and another TD in the air from Harp to Handler. Handler shredded the DHS secondary with seven catches for an eye-popping 206 yards.

Decatur had its chances in the second half. Linebacker Reece Madden, who has manufactured two turnovers in each of the last three games, came through with a fumble recovery and an interception on the only two possessions on which Argyle did not score.

It didn't help. Argyle picked off Metts twice and Decatur turned the ball over on three of its five possessions in the second half.

Argyle made the most of the extra chances by scoring on two of those takeaways. Frizzell scored both touchdowns when he ran in from five yards out and hauled in a 63-yard pass from Harp which made it 44-27 with 5:06 left in the third period.

Decatur must win its final game next week at Bowie to earn a piece of the district championship, which would be in sixth in a row for the Eagles. Decatur will be the Class 3A playoffs the following week against district champion Abilene Wylie.