DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
DONNA — At this time last year, Landry Gilpin was turning in his eighth grade football pads to play basketball for his junior high team.
Friday night, Gilpin led his Mission Veterans Memorial high school football team to a Class 5A, Division I bi-district playoff championship.
The precocious freshman rushed for 284 yards and four touchdowns and threw for 98 yards and a touchdown in leading the Patriots to a demonstrative 33-21 win over Donna High at Bennie La Prade Stadium.
Gilpin, starting because of an injury to No. 1 QB Diego Hernandez and the late-season injury and transfer of No. 2 QB Adam Solis, averaged 9.8 yards per carry as the Patriots totaled 411 yards against a typically punishing Donna defense.
“I was excited. Just really excited,” Gilpin said of his playoff debut. “I have a team that has my back and I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. As long as we stick together, I think we always have a chance.”
The Patriots (8-3) led 13-0, thanks to a defensive effort that forced three straight three-and-outs to start the game, before the Redskins (8-3) scored two touchdowns in three minutes to open the second quarter and take a 14-13 lead. But that would be the last of a Donna threat.
Gilpin scored on a 9-yard run with 48 seconds left in the half to regain the lead, and after the Patriots’ defense forced another three-and-out to start the second half, Gilpin scored again on a 1-yard run.
His 53-yard dazzler down the side and through the middle of the defense with 4:25 left in the third quarter put Vets up 33-14, all but sealing the win.
“They were locked down on our receivers,” Gilpin said. “Our guys did a good job getting open and I was just having a hard time getting the ball out to them. So I would just take it and run. The whole team did their part.”
As much as Gilpin awed, the defense was just as impressive.
The Patriots held the Redskins to 254 total yards (all rushing). Donna High’s dynamic tandem of Amonte Bowen (130 yards, 2 TDs) and Edward Dougherty (100 yards) filled the stat sheet, but rarely produced the big plays they’re known for.
Bowen had only two runs for more than nine yards, and Dougherty had one.
“Their team speed was phenomenal,” Donna High coach Ramiro Leal said. “Normally our guys make a move and they’re gone. But we couldn’t shake their safeties (seniors Cristian Anguiano and Kevin Liebano). They were always there. Their speed and the angles we projected weren’t there.
“Normally we break away, and we didn’t tonight.”
It led to a happy Patriots bunch, including a particularly happy dad.
“About two years ago I sat in a quarterback camp meeting, with a dad whose son was a quarterback,” said Mission Vets coach David Gilpin, father of Landry. “He talked about not being so hard on his kid because he’s hard enough on him at home. I’ve tried to stay light and put the pressure on the Bobby Tovars and Hugo Cabreras and the guys who have been there. I tell Landry just go out and play.
“He’s a calm and collected kid who’s relying a lot on talent right now, but he shows no fear. I’m one proud daddy right now.”
GOOD STARTS
Poor punting hurt Donna High all night, gifting Mission Veterans Memorial solid starting position on almost all of its possessions.
The Patriots’ starting points of the field on their drives: Vets’ 34-yard line, Vets’ 33, Donna’s 5, Donna’s 31, Vets’ 33, Donna’s 27, Donna’s 43, Vets’ 43, Vets’ 1, Vets’ 44, 50-yard line.
The Patriots scored on five of their 10 possessions and missed a field goal on another.
DONNA’S SKID
The Redskins last won a bi-district championship in 2007, which is also the last time they had won a district title.
Since then, Donna High is 0-7 in the first round of the playoffs. The Redskins fell to the Patriots in the bi-district round for a second straight year.