Leverett's Chapel bows out with playoff loss to Star

RIO VISTA — The Leverett's Chapel Lions, making their first-ever appearance in the UIL Six-Man playoffs, stumbed to Star, 101-56, in the six-man Division 2 regional game here Friday night.

The weather was cold and the sky was clear, but the Lions are still seeing Stars. Turnovers changed the game. Six turnovers and three score off of them, and the game was on ice.

"Turnovers killed us," assessed LC head football coach Matt Everett, "something we have not done all year. They scored on three of them early, and we just could not get good field position. We gave up good field positions on turnovers several times."

Star (10-0) has averaged over 80 points a game this season and has held their opponents under 60 points per contest. That is what happened Friday night. Star had over 450 total yards on offense while holding the Lions to only 346 total yards.

Kyle Youngblood during pratrice this past week pulled a muscle, and couldn't play. It was the first game for the Lions, incredibly, in three weeks: they had a bye week the final week of the regular season, then a first-round playoff bye. "The two-week layoff hurt our timing," Everett said. "Losing Kyle Youngblood missed up our rotation and strength on the field."

The Lions did score 56 points on the night in the wide-open six-man play. Hunter Hammontree had two touchdowns, Trevor Dean had four, and Daniel Still and Chas Maxwell finished with one each.

Hammontree had 142 total yards on the night, finishing his senior year with a grand total of 1,310 yards passing. He had 79 yards rushing on the night, giving him 983 for the year. He also helped the Lions score 50 touch downs, passing for 33 and rushing for 18, and caught three.

Dean had 26 touchdown catches for LC this season, and had 30 total. He also caught four passes against Star for a total of 51 on the year. He racked up an impressive 1186 yards this season.

Still caught a 25-yard pass from Hammontree for a touchdown during the fourth quarter. Still played quite a bit of quarterback during the year, and completed 34-of-56 passes for 714 yards, 13 touchdowns and only three picks.

Maxwell played defense during the season but carried the ball twice against Star and scored on a 43-yard run during the fourth quarter.

Youngblood has 33-catches for 476 yards and 12 scores on the year. Tony Chavez also had five catches for 89 yards.

"It was a great season," Everett said. "Our boys played hard. It was a great learning experience. We have something to build on for next August."

There are only three seniors on the Lions' roster, and LC will return 13 players.