McALLEN — For the first time this season, McAllen Memorial star running back Campbell Speights was held to under 200 yards rushing Friday against city rival McAllen High.
But the senior still scored three touchdowns and connected with Zyan Gregory for a tricky 61-yard touchdown pass and the Mustangs ran away with a 41-7 District 30-6A victory at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Memorial, the No. 1 team in the RGVSports.com Top 10 Poll, improved to 6-1 overall and 3-1 in the district. McHi fell to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in district.
Michael Lewis added 89 yards on 12 carries as McAllen Memorial compiled 293 yards rushing to go with 215 yards passing for an impressive 508 total yards of offense.
Memorial head coach Bill Littleton said offensively the team was looking to see what McHi’s defense was going to allow — and it became obvious that they were doing whatever they could to slow down Speights.
“Our kids always try to take what people give us,” Littleton said. “Today, the passing game was there and the receivers saw some good balls.”
Up 7-0 in the second quarter, Memorial quarterback Joseph Lara handed the ball off to Speights, who ran right, stopped and launched the ball along the sidelines to Gregory, who was all alone and scampered into the end zone with 7:19 remaining until halftime. Gregory had a breakout night, catching seven passes for 205 yards.
Memorial quarterback Joseph Lara completed 6-of-10 passes on the night for 154 yards.
“Our quarterback had a good game. We made some adjustments on offense at the half and played well there as well,” Littleton said. “Our defense played very well; we gave up very few yards, the pass coverage was good and our defensive coaches had a great game. I couldn’t be any more proud.”
The Memorial defense allowed McHi just 22 yards rushing on 16 attempts and 60 yards passing for a total of 82 yards.
Down 27-0 in the third quarter after a Speights 1-yard run, Dylan Suarez took the ensuing kickoff, reversed fields and took off for a 76-yard touchdown to close the gap to 27-7.
Lewis scored on the next possession on a 49-yard run and Speights scored his final touchdown to end the scoring. Memorial ran 67 plays and limited the Bulldogs to just 34.
McHi returns to action at 7:30 p.m. Friday against PSJA High. Memorial will host La Joya Juarez-Lincoln at 7:30 p.m. Friday.