Posted: Sat, 5 Nov 2011 08:04 PM - 8,549 Readers
By: Danny Davis
The Lake Travis Cavaliers got their gold football back.
Colin Lagasse scored three times and Lake Travis survived a late rally in a 24-21 victory over Cedar Park on Friday night. The win keeps Lake Travis undefeated and gives the Cavaliers the outright District 25-4A championship.
Exactly one year earlier, Cedar Park beat Lake Travis 35-21 in the final week of the regular season to claim the District 25-4A title. Four week later, however, Lake Travis used a 21-20 win to knock out Cedar Park in the quarterfinal round of the Class 4A, Division I playoffs.
"We forgot about that playoff win against them," junior quarterback Baker Mayfield said as his teammates celebrated around him with the district championship trophy.
"They always say we got lucky beating them in the playoffs so we wanted to prove who was the better team," Lagasse said.
Lagasse proved to be a one-man problem for the Cedar Park defense in the first two quarters as his two touchdowns propelled Lake Travis into halftime with a 17-0 lead.
Lagasse scored the game's first touchdown on a 16-yard run with 6:21 left in the first quarter. The Cavaliers' season-opening quarterback before a shoulder injury handed the job off to Mayfield, Lagasse took a direct snap and ran into the endzone.
Lagasse also had seven catches in the first half. The second-to-last reception was a beautiful nine-yard touchdown catch in double coverage with 7:43 left in the second quarter.
"It helped a lot to get (the touchdowns) because they came out in the second half ready to play," Lagasse said.
Cedar Park, on the other hand, struggled throughout the first half.
On offense, the Timberwolves ran 22 plays but was limited to 41 yards, two first downs and zero trips into Lake Travis territory.
On special teams, two bad plays within about a minute of each other - a poor snap on a fourth-down punt attempt and a lost fumble on a kick return
- led to Lake Travis' first 10 points.
"I feel the first half it was kind of like a boxer standing in the center of the ring with his hands at his waist," Cedar Park coach Chris Ross said.
On Lake Travis' first offensive play in the third quarter, Lagasse gave the Cavaliers a 24-0 lead with an 85-yard touchdown run.
"He made some great plays tonight," Lake Travis coach Hank Carter said.
"We knew he could do some key plays when healthy."
After Lagasse's long touchdown run, Cedar Park began to chip away at the Cavaliers' lead.
Thomas Middleton and Nathan Harwell each scored on one-yard touchdown runs to cut Lake Travis' advantage to 24-13. The Timberwolves then pulled within three points on Alex Curl's 16-yard touchdown catch and a two-point conversion toss from Brian Hogan to Chad Whitehead with 12 seconds remaining.
Lake Travis, however, recovered the ensuing onside kick and a timeout-less Cedar Park team was unable to stop the Cavaliers from running out the clock.
Lake Travis' three-point win sets up two first-round playoff rematches next week.
The Cavaliers will host McCallum on Thursday night in a Class 4A, Division I bidistrict playoff match. Cedar Park will play LBJ in the other Class 4A, Division I matchup between teams from District 25-4A and District 26-4A.
In last year's bidistrict playoff round, Lake Travis beat McCallum 28-20 while Cedar Park advanced to the second round with a 70-20 win over LBJ.
