A kickoff return for a touchdown is not as common as a touchdown run or touchdown pass.
When the St. Mary’s and Austin Not Your Ordinary School six-man football teams squared off Friday, Sept. 19, a kick-return-six happened five times – in one quarter. The Rams had four of those five scoring returns in the third quarter and used a bruising rushing attack to run past the Jaguars, 91-45, at Memorial Field in Taylor.
“I’ve never been a part of that before, but that’s six-man football,” said Rick Cobia, St.
Mary’s head coach. “You get a little space and a kid who has enough athletic ability, he can break one. We saw a lot of that (Friday).”
St. Mary’s (1-2) also won its first homecoming game in three years.
Senior Steven Reyes, who ran for more than 200 yards and three touchdowns and had a pair of those kickoff returns for scores, was crowned homecoming king at halftime.
“We haven’t won a homecoming game in two years, and we ended that drought,” Reyes said.
In addition to Reyes’ big night, fellow senior Jose Hengst ran for more than 100 yards and four touchdowns.
He also had the final score of the night, which ended the game by the 45-point mercy rule with 1:51 left in the fourth quarter.
“I made a vow to mercy- rule them and I ran hard tonight,” Hengst said.
Friday’s game had a little bit of everything.
Prior to the wild third quarter, the game started off slow with each team committing a pair of turnovers in the first quarter, which was followed by a calmer second quarter, a 67-point third quarter and a St. Mary’s-dominated fourth quarter.
“We had turnovers and bad plays that weren’t executed correctly,” Cobia said.
“There’s a lot of work to be done and it’s a young season. There’s a lot of things that we need to clean up.”
After one quarter of play, the Rams led 15-6. Hengst and Reyes each had a touchdown run, while Joseph Barta had a two-point conversion kick and Anthony Britten caught an extrapoint pass from Diego Reyes.
The second quarter was a little cleaner for St. Mary’s. After giving up a touchdown early in the frame, the Rams closed out the quarter with a pair of scoring runs from Steven Reyes and a two-point kick from Barta to give the Rams a 29-12 lead at the half.
Chaos followed in the third quarter. Diego Reyes took the secondhalf kickoff back for a touchdown and Barta added the two-point kick before NYOS (0-4) recovered its own fumble in the end zone to trim its deficit to 37-18.
Ridge Lossen returned the ensuing kickoff for a score before the Jaguars returned the following kickoff for a touchdown and Steven Reyes took an errant onside kick attempt by NYOS back for a score.
The 18 points in 18 seconds sequence put St.
Mary’s up 49-24.
Following a Jaguars touchdown run, Hengst scored his second touchdown of the night before intercepting a pass to set up a touchdown run from Diego Reyes.
Barta’s two-point kick made it 63-31 in favor of the Rams.
The third quarter ended with a NYOS touchdown pass and the second kickoff-returnsix from Steven Reyes to put St. Mary’s up 69-39 heading into the final quarter. The Rams outscored the Jaguars, 40-27, in the third.
“We worked a lot on our special teams and assignments, including extra points. We made a lot of those,” Cobia said.
“We worked on snapping the ball, kick returns and coverage this week.
We’re continuing to get better.”
Hengst scored his third touchdown run of the night and Barta followed with a two-point kick before NYOS scored again. Lossen turned in a touchdown run followed by a two-point kick from Barta, and Hengst put the game away with his fourth and final touchdown run after the Jaguars turned the ball over on downs.
St. Mary’s had a bye this week and returns to the gridiron Oct. 3 when Waco Christian Academy comes to town. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.
“We’re going to work on getting healthy and improving in different phases,” Cobia said. “We lost six seniors from last year, and we’re trying to get them in to play more. The young guys are having to step up and do that.”
