DAWG BITES

- Palo Duro scored 47 straight points after Wylie takes a 3-0 lead in the first quarter

- The Bulldogs had 54 5otal yards after one quarter but only went over 100 total yards in the fourth quarter

- Wylie is one of three teams with one district loss as the apparent chase for second place begins

AMARILLO - It’s becoming apparent in District 2-5A that PD is Pretty Dominant.

The Palo Duro Dons, who survived a late Wylie rally a year ago at Dick Bivins Stadium, scored 47 straight points after the Bulldogs took an early lead to roll to a 53-10 win Friday night.

It was PD’s 10th straight district win and all but sewed up the district title. The Dons (7-1) have put three of its four major contenders - Wylie, Abilene Cooper and Wichita Falls Legacy - behind them and have only WF Memorial (1-2 in district) and Lubbock-Cooper (1-2) ahead to defend their 2025 title.

Wylie (4-3, 2-1) now enters the chase for second place, which would mean a home playoff game instead of one on the road. The Bulldogs are host to Lubbock-Cooper, which won its first game with a 48-6 thrashing of Coronado, on Friday at Sandifer Stadium.

The Bulldogs pulled off an almost perfect first drive Friday to take a 3-0 lead. The Dons, however, answered to take the lead for good at 6-3, then scored three touchdowns in an 8:43 span to pull away.

Wylie did not score again until the 2:00 mark of the fourth quarter, when Myles McCarty threw an 8-yard strike to K.J. Villegas. By then, both teams had non-starters on the field.

To make Wylie’s drive back to Abilene even longer, the Dons scored with no time remaining on a weaving 27-yard run by Toombs Jackson.

Wylie coach Clay Martin put it succinctly after the game.

“Really good football team. They played really well tonight, and you’ve got to give them all the credit,” he said. “They are super athletic and very aggressive in what they do.

“They dictated it from the beginning. The game turned out how they wanted it to be.”

IT WAS ALL DONS

Raymond Johnson V, who scored three times against Wylie in the Dons’ 42-35 win last year, scored twice and lobbed a 5-yard pass to Keimaure Rayford out of what is called the wildcat or box formation early in the fourth quarter.

Rayford, who entered the game without a catch on the season, earlier had snagged a 3-yard TD pass from Julian Reese II.

Johnson ran for a game high 152 yards on just 18 carries. His best run might have been his 12-yard TD as the first half closed. He ran into a wall of PD and Wylie linemen only to bounce to his left and run untouched into the end zone.

The PD trio of Johnson, Reese, and Kyron Brown was as dominant as advertised. All three had big roles in last year’s win, too.

Reese ran for a score and threw two TD passes. Brown, who had just four catches but for 121 yards, made a hands catch over the defense of Wylie’s Liam Chapman for a 36-yard score. Three of Brown’s four catches were for more than 30 yards.

Chapman had a tough assignment, taking on the University of Texas-bound Brown. Despite tight coverage, Reese put the ball where only Brown could get it. And he most often did.

If those three were the stars of an offense that ground out 452 yards, the defense was led by Zachary Linton.

Linton seemed to play all night on the Wylie side of scrimmage. He had several tackles, with one taken away by a penalty.

When Wylie tried a fake punt in the second quarter, it was Linton who came out of nowhere to nail Myles McCarty for an 11-yard loss.

Ironically, Wylie stopped PD on four plays starting from the Bulldogs 32.

His pressure and that of his teammates kept Wylie quarterback Jadin Karleskint unsettled. Karleskint threw two interceptions to equal his season total.

However, both were athletic plays by Reese, who is a defensive back when not quarterback. Wylie has lived this year on receivers Blaze Ruffin and Jackston Williams outplaying their defenders for the ball. On Friday, however, these possession–minded receivers met their match in Reese, who came away with the football on deep throws.

Linton even contributed two points when he scored on a two-point conversion after a botched kick attempt.

It was that kind of night for the Dons, who had no turnovers and punted just once.

BULLDOGS STYMIED

Karleskint, who had completed about 70 percent of his passes this season, finished 8 of 21 for 53 yards. An inside pass to Blaze Ruffin netted 27 of those yards.

How dominant was Palo Duro’s defense, which now has given up 85 points in eight games?

The Dons recorded 21 plays for zero yards or a loss.

Karleskint threw the ball away four times with Dons in his face and no one open

The Wylie quarterback had a pass deflected and caught the ball himself for an 8-yard loss. He had to catch it because Brown was there and had open field for a touchdown.

Wylie had 54 yards of offense in the first quarter but had a total of 45 yards entering the fourth quarter.

Reese, who was completing 57 percent of his throws, was 12-of-17 for 192 yards. Two teammates completed for 4 yards each.

WYLIE SCORED EARLY AND LATE

The only downside to Wylie’s opening drive was settling for three points instead of getting a touchdown.

Going against a stiff northerly wind, the Bulldogs took 15 plays and 7:40 off the clock. That was done after Karleskint was sacked for an 8-yard loss on the first play of the game, meaning the Bulldogs dug out from second down at their 1.

PD helped with two penalties for 30 yards but Wylie also got a fourth-down conversion from its 34 on a Dylan Regala run from the box formation. Regala later in the half was ejected from the game for a personal foul.

Wylie drove to the 12 but Karleskint was dropped for a four-yard loss on second down and his third-down pass to Williams went incomplete. Kannon Ruffin booted a 33-yard field goal into the wind.

“A tough drive. To come away with points … it was just too far and few between,” Martin said.

The Bulldogs chased PD throughout the 2025 game after falling behind 14-0, finally catching the Dons at 35 on a touchdown with less than 2 minutes to play.

The Bulldogs never caught Palo Duro this time after PD answered Wylie’s long opening drive with a 5-play, 73-yarder capped by Reese’s 13-yard run.

Wylie’s other touchdown came on a drive that started with under 8 minutes to play.

The Bulldogs started at their 25 and got to midfield. It looked to be 4th-and-8 but a facemask penalty gave Wylie a first down at the Dons’ 33.

McCarty went 26 yards to K.J.Villegas to the 7 and two plays later the two backups teamed again, this time on a crossing route for the touchdown with 1:48 remaining.

PD, however, wasn’t done. Starting at the Wylie 37, the Dons faced a 4th-and-1 at the 28. Jackson took the ball to right and snaked his way into the end as the scoreboard clock flashed all zeroes.

Again, it was that kind of night for the Dons.

How does Wylie handle the setback?

“Same thing as we do every week. We’re going back to work. We’re not going to blame each other but we’re going to get better as a team,” Martin said. “We’ll watch the film and evaluate that and move on to the next one.”

The Bulldogs, who missed the playoff in 2025, still can take second in 2-5A..

“We’re just worried about beating Lubbock-Cooper,” Martin said.

GAME NOTES

Palo Duro did not warm up on the field before the game. The Dons entered the stadium only before the opening kickoff

The Dons had 13 penalties for 139 yards, including the rare call for a player continuing to play without a helmet (15 yards)

The temperature at kickoff in Amarillo (52 degrees) was about 35 degrees colder than it was the week before in Abilene when Wylie was host to Memorial

One of the Dons’ assistant coaches is Evander “Ziggy” Hood, who played at PD, then at Missouri and was a draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played in the NFL from 2009-19

YARDSTICK

Wylie PD
First downs 16 22
Rushing 38-21 31-252
A-C-Int 11-24-2 14-19-0
Passing 85 200
Total offense 106 452
Punting 2-31.0 1-25.0
Fumbles/lost 1-0 2-0
Penalties 2-30 13-139

SCORE BY QUARTERS
Wylie 3 0 0 7 - 10
Palo Duro 6 20 15 12 - 53

SCORING
First quarter
Wylie - Kannon Ruffin 33 FG, 4:20
PD - Julian Reese 13 run (PAT failed), 2:38
Second quarter
PD - Emiliano Castillo 4 run (Yandell Barron-Sandoval kick), 9:48
PD - Raymond Johnson 1 run (Barron-Sandoval kick), 6:57
PD - Johnson 12 run (PAT failed), 1:05
Third quarter
PD - Keimaure Rayford 3 pass from Reese (ZacharyLinton run), 4:15
PD - Kyron Brown 36 pass from Reese (Barron-Sandoval kick), 1:08
Fourth quarter
PD - Rayford 4 pass from Johnson (kick blocked), 7:53
Wylie - K.J. Villegas 8 pass from Myles McCarty (K. Ruffin kick), 2:00
PD - Toombs Jackson 28 run, 0:00

WYLIE INDIVIDUAL STATS
Rushing - Cooper Jones, 11-20; Jett Wilson, 8-19; Landry Pate, 2-4; Dylan Regala, 1-2; Kory Gibson 2-2; Myles McCarty, 1-minus 7; Jadin Karleskint, 13-minus 19
Passing - Karleskint, 8-21-53-2-0; McCarty, 3-3-32-0-1
Receiving - Blaze Ruffin, 4-54; K.J. Villegas, 2-34; Jones, 1-8; Wilson, 2-minus 1; Gibson, 1-minus 2; Karleskint, 1-minus 8

2026 DISTRICT 2-5A STANDINGS
Team District Season
W L Pts. Def. W L Pts. Def.
Am. Palo Duro 4 0 193 26 7 1 311 85
Ab. Cooper 3 1 124 104 5 3 216 181
Wylie 2 1 93 86 4 3 200 165
WF Legacy 1 2 46 64 4 3 245 199
WF Memorial 1 2 100 83 3 4 304 268
Lub-Cooper 1 2 68 70 1 6 131 242
Lub. Coronado 0 4 33 218 1 7 137 335

LAST FRIDAY'S GAMES
Palo Duro 53, Wylie 10
Abilene Cooper 41, Legacy 35
Lubbock Cooper 48, Coronado 6
Memorial open

THIS FRIDAY'S GAMES
Lubbock-Cooper at Wylie
Palo Duro at Memorial
Legacy at Coronado
Abilene Cooper open