DAWG BITES

- A fourth-down pass by Wylie to the end zone falls incomplete with under a minute to play

- Wylie totals 117 yards rushing vs. 128 by Julius Lane alone in 2025

- Brownwood quarterback Riggs Gray, up from the 2025 JV, throws for 125 yards in the second half after totaling 6 yards in the first half and running back Trent Buffington logs 118 yards


It was a game that Wylie should have won, should have lost, could have won and, finally, lost.

The Brownwood Lions again proved a thorn in the Bulldogs’ paw, building a 13-0 lead late in the game before holding off a determined Wylie rally to win 13-7 on Friday at Sandifer Stadium.

It was the season-opening game for both teams.

The Class 4A Lions have won two of the past three games against Class 5A Bulldogs, both at Sandifer Stadium. Wylie squeaked out a 30-24 win in Brownwood in 2022 before shutting out the Lions 25-0 in last year’s opener.

“Brownwood played very well. They possessed the ball and played very physical and didn’t make any mistakes,” Wylie coach Clay Martin said. “I felt like we did. When you’re going to have limited opportunities, you’ve got to take advantage and we didn’t do a good job of that.”

Wylie had the football nine times on offense. There were two sustained drives but four three-and-outs. Three trips inside the 20 resulted in no points.

THE LAST GASP

Wylie’s play resembled bookends.

The Bulldogs drove with authority after taking the opening kickoff only to get stymied inside the Lions 10 and then miss a field goal.

Down 13-0 with 2:03 to play, the Bulldogs used just 23 seconds of clock time to score their first points of the season on a nifty 35-yard pass from Jadin Karleskint to Dylan Regala. Sophomore placekicker Kannon Ruffin, who also had a field goal blocked, tacked on his first varsity point.

Wylie opted for the onside kick and Blake Frailing came up with the loose football at the Brownwood 49.

Suddenly, the 1:35 left in the game looked like it was enough time for the Bulldogs to salvage the win.

Three completions by Karleskint moved the ball to the 16 with 1:08 to go. Fans on both sides of the stadium were on their feet, half hopeful and half worried.

A motion penalty pushed Wylie back 5 yards. Brownwood stepped up its pressure.

Karleskint gained a yard on a keeper, then four yards, not able to find a receiver.

On third down, he threw incomplete to Jackston Williams. On fourth down, with 36 seconds to go, Karleskint went to his big-play receiver, Blaze Ruffin, but the pass sailed incomplete in the left corner of the end zone.

Brownwood kneeled twice, and it was ballgame.

Ruffin, who had three catches for a modest 25 yards, said Wylie’s mojo was missing in the middle of the game.

“I think we lost confidence. We made some mental mistakes. We need to win our turnovers,” the senior receiver said.

“We just need to bounce back next week and play better as a team. We’re going to get back to work and look forward to Monterey.”

The Plainsmen took a 24-21 win in Lubbock last year.

“Win or lose, we’re going back to work,” Wylie coach Clay Martin said.

GOOD OPENING DRIVE, THEN...

The game boiled down to Brownwood doing what it needed to do to steal a win - controlling the ball and playing solid defense. Wylie failed to score three times inside the red zone. The only TD was the long pass to Regala.

In addition to the missed and blocked field goals, the Bulldogs lost a fumble when Cooper Jones, running from the Lions 10 in the second quarter, was hit near the 5 and Hut Malone fell on the football at the 4.

The only TD was the long pass to Regala.

“We preached that we’re going to start with defense, that we’re going to be great on defense, and we did,” second-year Brownwood coach Jeryl Brixey said.

Brownwood’s game plan was no surprise to Wylie. The Lions just pulled it off.

“We came in knowing that Brownwood would be decent,” said senior linebacker Landry Pate, who had two sacks and four rushes for 18 yards.. “But there was a lot of stuff that we could’ve done better.”

The killer, may have been, the opening drive. It set the tone for the game for Wylie.

The Bulldogs ran 16 plays and burned 7 minutes of clock time.

Three penalties, however, were costly. An illegal man downfield as Karleskint rolled to his right and threw complete to Regala in the end zone took six points off the scoreboard.

The two tried to hook up again on third down from the 5 but Karleskint missed after five straight completions.

Kannon Ruffin’s kick went right.

A flip of the field put Brownwood on the scoreboard and in the lead, it turned out, for good.

The Lions had to punt after stopping Wylie and Hudson Deen, with the wind, boomed it from his 25. Returner Blaze Ruffin bobbled the sailing ball at the Wylie 28 and chased it down at the Wylie 10.

The Bulldogs went 3-and-out and the ensuing punt went only to the Wylie 41.

A 19-yard run by workhorse Lions back Trent Buffington, who had 115 yards in the game, set up Brownwood at the Wylie 8. The Bulldogs held, forcing Aiden Jimenez's 22-yard field goal.

He would add an important 21-yarder with 2:03 to play. That gave Brownwood a 13-0 lead and would force Wylie to go for a touchdown rather than a tying field to send the game into overtime.

Ironically, Wylie punter Myles McCarty launched a 69-yard punt that pinned the Lions at their 1. The Bulldogs, however, could not cash in.

BULLDOGS PLAYED WELL ON DEFENSE

On the other side of the ball, Wylie played good enough defense to win the game.

“We didn’t play poorly,” Pate said. “It was just little mistakes that turned into major plays for them.”

The Lions twice drove to field goals beginning at the Bulldogs 41, capitalizing on a short field. Buffington’s running allowed Brownwood to move the ball in the first half.

Key pass plays marked the second half..

“We’re going to run the ball and use play-action pass, and we started to do that in the second half,” Brixey said. “We opened up a lot of things throwing the ball.”

Brownwood had one sustained drive, mirroring Wylie’s opening effort.

The Lions took the second-half kickoff and marched 88 yards in 11 plays. Quarterback Riggs Gray, who 1-for-8 in the first half for 6 yards, completed passes of 20, 15 and 30 yards.

“He played tight in the first half but in the second half really stepped it up,” Brixey said.

That put the ball at the Wylie 13 and Buffington carried three times, including a 6-yard run standing up to give Brownwood a 10-0 lead.

Brownwood also missed a long field goal by Jimenez, again starting in Wylie territory (36 yard line). A sack by Pate helped stall the drive.

The Lions totaled 257 yards with a balanced attack - 126 on the ground and 131 passing. Martin said before the game that Brownwood’s goal was to run the football, then work in play-action pass. Gray did that effectively in the second half.

Wylie had 292 yards, with Karleskint throwing for 175. The senior quarterback was 18-for-27 after throwing only seven times last year against the Lions in his varsity debut.

“They did a good job of putting pressure on us,” Martin said of Brownwood making life harder for his quarterback. “We’ve got to be better at executing than we did tonight.”

Karleskint also had Wylie’s longest run of the night, rambling 27 yards after seeing open field while looking to pass on the opening drive.

Pate, the No. 3 back, had a 17-yarder.

CHANGE OF TACTIC

His team down 10-0 in the fourth quarter, Martin tried to change the flow of the game by going into a wildcat formation near midfield. Teams usually go to this offensive package closer to the goal line or in short-yardage situations.

Regala and Pate took turns taking snaps, with Pate’s 17-yarder moving the ball to the 18. Regala’s 10-yarder took it to the 4 but Deen and Wyatt Wolf took Karleskint back three yards from the 2 yard line on third down.

Kannon Ruffin’s field goal was blocked and Deen picked up the football and ran it to the Wylie 32.

Martin said Wylie excels in that tight formation and it doesn’t require a lot of clock time.

“But you’ve got to come away with points,” he said.

From there, Brownwood drove to its second field goal and a 13-0 lead with time running out.

And time did run out on Wylie.

“Obviously, it’s the beginning of the season and we’ll learn. We’ve got to keep stacking good things on top of good things,” Pate said.

Will the Bulldogs use the loss as fuel for the fire?

“Yes, especially playing Monterey next week,” he said.”This will light a fire under our butts.”

Wylie now makes two straight Friday night trips to the Lubbock area, taking on Monterey this week. The Plainsmen eked out a 36-35 win over Coronado, which went 1-9 last year. The next week, it’s off to Wolfforth to face a Frenship team that blasted Wylie district rival Lubbock-Cooper 50-17.

“It’s a long year, and we’ve got to go back to work and learn from this,” Martin said.

YARDSTICK
WHS BHS
First downs 18 10
Rushing 31-117 38-126
A-C-INT 18-27-0 7-16-0
Passing 175 131
Total offense 292 257
Punting 4-44.3 2-46.5
Fumbles/lost 0-0 0-0
Penalties 6-37 6-35

SCORING

SECOND QUARTER
BHS - Aiden Jimenez 22 FG, 9:39

THIRD QUARTER
BHS - Trent Buffington 4 run (Jimenez kick), 6:03

FOURTH QUARTER
BHS - Jimenez 21 FG, 2:03
WHS - Dylan Regala 35 pass from Jadin Karleskint (Kannon Ruffkin kick), 1:4-

WYLIE INDIVIDUAL STATS
RUSHING: Cooper Jones 9-42, Jadin Karleskint 9-36, Dylan Regala 6-32, Landry Pate 4-18, Jett Wilson 2-4; team 1-minus 15

PASSING: Karleskint 18-27-0-1-175

RECEIVING: Jones 5-27, Regala 3-55-1, Blaze Ruffin 3-25, Jackston Williams 2-28, Blake Frailing 2-20, Maylon Green-Rhodes 2-14, Landry Pate 1-6

2026 DISTRICT 2-5A STANDINGS
Team District Season
W L PF PA W L PF PA
WF Legacy 0 0 0 0 1 0 24 21
WF Memorial 0 0 0 0 1 0 54 34
Wylie 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 13
Ab. Cooper 0 0 0 0 0 1 24 28
Am. Palo Duro 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 21
Lub-Cooper 0 0 0 0 0 1 17 50

THURSDAY
WF Memorial 54, FW Paschal 34

FRIDAY
Brownwood 13 Wylie, 7
Azle 24, Abilene Cooper 21
Amarillo High 21, Palo Duro 7
Frenship 50, Lubbock-Cooper 17
WF Legacy 24, Grapevine 21

THIS WEEK'S GAMES
Wylie at Lubbock Monterey
Palo Duro vs. Amarillo Caprock
Abilene Cooper vs. Abilene High
Greenwood at Lubbock-Cooper
WF Legacy at FW Eastern Hills
Canyon Randall at FW Memorial