Faith ends 2-year playoff drought with 42-14 win over CTC
JENNIFER FIERRO • STAFF WRITER
TEMPLE — The message during the week was clear to the Faith Academy of Marble Falls football team: Beat Temple Central Texas Christian and win a trip to the Division III playoffs of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
The Flames (4-5 overall, 2-3 District 4) responded with a resounding 42-14 victory Nov. 4.
Faith will play Shiner St. Paul in the first round of the playoffs at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, at Comanche Stadium, 510 CR 348 in Shiner.
“It feels good,” Flames head coach Stephen Shipley said of breaking a two-year playoff drought. “The season hasn’t been what we’d hoped, but we thought it would be good to make the playoffs.”
Mother Nature didn’t make it easy, he added, noting the game was played on a wet, sloppy, and muddy field. But Faith didn’t let anything deter it from moving forward, he said, and might have even surprised the Lions (0-10, 0-5).
“We came out throwing the ball in the first half,” Shipley said.
That strategy resulted in three touchdown passes from quarterback Garrett Henderson. One was to Preston Richardson for 50 yards; another went to Jared Gastineau for 30 yards; and the last found Brayden McBryde for 20 yards. Faith led 21-7 at the half.
In the second half, with the Flames in control of the contest, they flipped the script and ran the clock with Kameron Ellenberger and Henderson taking charge.
Ellenberger scored on a 70-yard touchdown run, while Henderson found paydirt from 20 yards out.
Henderson also returned an interception for a score from about 50 yards.
Shipley noted the Faith offense had to punt the ball on their first two series of the game, but he credited the defense for making CTC uncomfortable until the Flames found an offensive rhythm.
“We had to adjust to the wet conditions,” Shipley said.
It also didn’t help that the Flames lost two linemen right before the game started. The position had so few players available that Richardson, who is a skill-position player, was moved to tackle to help the team.
“The defense played great,” Shipley said. “They had a bunch of big stops.”
jfierro@thepicayune.com