Game Recap: Tomball Christian Warriors beat the Cypress Christian Warriors 27-13

About the author: Ella Hippel

On September 30, 2022, the Tomball Christian Warriors beat the Cypress Christian Warriors 27-13. It was the fourth straight victory for TCW as they improved their record to 4-2. The defense only allowed one touchdown and held the opponent to two field goal attempts in the red zone. The offense took the lead on the first drive of the game, scored a total of four touchdowns, and gained 295 yards during the evening.

In the first quarter, the TCW Warriors had two drives on offense and played two on defense. WR/CB Jackson Resurreccion caught the ball on the opening kickoff and pitched it to RB/OLB Caleb Harmon, who took it to his own 29 yard line. During the 10 play drive, QB Drew Harrison was 2/2 with a 13 yard pass to Jackson Resurreccion and a 23 yard pass to WR/SS Josiah Stavinoha. Caleb Harmon, TE/MLB/RB Ezra Criswell, and RB/CB Daniel Abraham contributed in the run game and brought the ball to Cypress Christian’s 5 yard line. From there, Caleb Harmon scored his fifth touchdown of the season and K/WR Ethan Rice’s extra point was good. The Warriors took the lead 7-0 with 6:51 left in the first quarter. Ethan kicked off and SS/OLB Jack Alderson tackled the returner at his own 23 yard line. Cypress Christian only made it to their own 46 yard line before a 3 yard TFL by OLB/LT Reagan Zbylot and several incomplete passes stopped their drive. They punted and the Warriors got the ball at their 22 yard line. A false start on second and five stalled their drive and they were forced to punt. Reagan Zbylot tackled the returner at the TCW 48 yard line. OLB/RB/FB Garrett England had a 2 yard TFL on the second play of the drive and Reagan had an 11 yard sack on the seventh play, which was the last play of the first quarter. TCW was ahead 7-0.

In the second quarter, the Warriors played two series on offense and four on defense. To end their drive, Cypress Christian was unable to convert on third down and kicked a field goal from the TCW 15 yard line. The Warriors led 7-3 with 11:49 left in the second quarter. Jackson Resurreccion returned the kickoff to the TCW 30 yard line and the offense went three and out with two incomplete passes and a 6 yard run by Drew Harrison. Ethan Rice punted and the ball bounced to Cypress Christian’s 18 yard line. The next series lasted 15 plays and the passing defense only allowed 2 out of 7 pass attempts to be completed. DE/DT Mark Haynes deflected a pass, Daniel Abraham nearly had an interception, and OLB Peter Zbylot forced back to back incompletions. It was enough to force Cypress Christian to try a field goal within the red zone again. They made it and the score was 7-6. with 3:35 left to go in the second quarter. Jackson Resurreccion returned the kickoff again and the Warriors got the ball at their 23 yard line. Jackson had a 7 yard reception on the first play of the series and Garrett England had a 9 yard reception to end the series. The Warriors were forced to punt from their 44 yard line. The returner called for a fair catch and the defense took the field again. Three straight completions took the opponent to the Warriors’ 30 yard line, but DE Jeremiah Wilkins had a sack on the next play. He stopped the offense’s momentum and they were forced to try a field goal from their 23 yard line. It was no good and the first half of the game ended. The Warriors led 7-6 and would be kicking off to begin the second half of the game. The offense hadn’t completely found its rhythm but had still scored and the defense was bending but not breaking.

In the third quarter, the Warriors played two series on offense and three on defense. Ethan Rice kicked off to Cypress Christian and SS/WR Ty Rosenbusch tackled the returner at his 20 yard line. Three plays into the drive, Jeremiah Wilkins sacked the quarterback for a 7 yard loss on second down. The next play was an incomplete pass which forced Cypress Christian to punt. The ball rolled to the TCW 22 yard line and the offense took the field. Caleb Harmon started the drive with back to back 11 yard runs. After Caleb rushed two more times and got another first down, Josiah Stavinoha caught a 26 yard pass. His reception brought the ball to the opponent’s 17 yard line and an 11 yard run by Ezra Criswell put the ball at the 6 yard line. Daniel Abraham rushed for 5 yards on first down but was stopped at the goal line and FB/DT/NG Joe Cassidy went in on the next play. He scored a 1 yard rushing touchdown and the two point attempt was unsuccessful. The Warriors added 6 points to their lead and the score was 13-6 with 4:18 left in the third quarter. Ethan Rice kicked off and Peter Zbylot tackled the returner at the Cypress Christian 15 yard line. They only got one first down on the seven play drive thanks to pressure on the quarterback, good pass coverage, and a penalty. Daniel Abraham returned the punt to the 50 yard line. Two plays into the drive, Drew Harrison threw a beautiful 48 yard pass to Jackson Resurreccion, who outran a defender to score. The extra point by Ethan Rice was good and the Warriors’ lead expanded to 20-6 with :28 left in the third quarter. It was enough time for Ethan to kick off. Daniel Abraham tackled the returner at the Cypress Christian 23 yard line. On defense, Mark Haynes tackled the running back after a 1 yard gain to end the third quarter. The Warriors led 20-6.

In the fourth quarter, the Warrior offense played 4 series and so did the defense. The Cypress Christian offensive drive from the third quarter continued with a 20 yard run that put the ball at their own 44 yard line. On the next play, CB/RB Anthony Carias caused a fumble and Caleb Harmon recovered the ball at the opponent’s 47 yard line. The offense took the field. On third and nine, Caleb Harmon left several defenders in his wake on a 46 yard touchdown run. Ethan Rice’s extra point was good and the score was 27-6 with 9:41left in the fourth quarter. On the kickoff, the returner was able to get to his own 42 yard line before he was tackled by DE/OLB/RB Kevin Snaider. Four straight completions led to a 1 yard rushing touchdown and a successful extra point. The score was now 27-13 with 8:01 left in the fourth quarter. On the kickoff, Jackson Resurreccion returned the ball to his 36 yard line. A 10 yard penalty on the first play of the series put the offense at first and 20. They were unable to get a first down and punted. After a fair catch, the Cypress Christian offense got the ball at their 35 yard line. After they completed a 17 yard pass, they couldn’t get another first down and punted back to the Warriors. The offense went three and out after gaining only 5 yards. They punted and the returner called for a fair catch at his 21 yard line. Their offensive drive lasted for eight plays and started with a pass deflected by Daniel Abraham. On the last two plays of the drive, Mark Haynes and Jeremiah Wilkins had back to back sacks. When Cypress Christian punted, Jeremiah tipped the ball and Peter Zbylot downed it at the opponent’s 44 yard line. The offense took a knee and the game ended. The Warriors had taken a lead early in the game and never gave it up. The defense broke up several passes, had seven sacks, and forced 3 field goal attempts within the 25 yard line. The offense dominated in the run game, completed several long passes, and scored four touchdowns. The special teams didn’t miss an extra point and gave the offense good field position. Overall, the Warriors performed well and won their fourth straight game. The victory proved once again that they can hold their own against or outperform tough and well-respected teams.

The offense put up impressive stats during the evening. Drew Harrison was 7 of 14 with 128 passing yards and a touchdown. His performance earned his a quarterback rating of 105.7. Jackson Resurreccion led the team in receiving yards with 3 receptions for 68 yards, including a 48 yard touchdown. Josiah Stavinoha had the second most receiving yards with a total of 49 on 2 catches. Garrett England had 2 catches for 11 yards and the third most receiving yards. In the run game, Caleb Harmon had 104 rushing yards on 13 carries, including a 46 yard rushing touchdown and a 5 yard rushing touchdown. Daniel Abraham had the second most rushing yards with a total of 26 on 5 carries. Ezra Criswell had the third most on 3 carries for 21 yards. Joe Cassidy had the third rushing touchdown on a 1 yard run, which was his only rushing attempt of the game.

The Warrior defense also contributed some notable statistics. Peter Zbylot led the team in tackles with a total of 9. Caleb Harmon had the second most with 8. Mark Haynes had 7, including 2 TFLs. He also had 2 sacks. Daniel Abraham, Reagan Zbylot and Joe Cassidy had the third most tackles with 6 each. The defensive line continued to perform well as Reagan had 2 sacks, Joe had 5 quarterback hurries, and Jeremiah Wilkins had 3 sacks. There were no interceptions, but the passing defense had 6 passes deflected, with Daniel Abraham contributing 2. Anthony Carias also caused and recovered a fumble.

I interviewed Joe Cassidy about the defensive line’s performance, momentum from the Lighthouse game, and what he hopes to accomplish during bye week.

Ella: What is your opinion on the team’s overall performance tonight?

Joe: I think we did good. We’re definitely still in the habit of kind of taking it slow in the first quarter and we still gotta get warmed up. But other than that, I think it was all right. Definitely on defense we kept coming in with different play calls and we were doing really good with adjusting to that. Offensively, there’s always something we’ve got to click but today we clicked it so they did a great job. I was just telling the boys before the game, we’ve just got to execute, execute, execute. Because when we execute, we play our game and we all have fun. We’ve got our mojo going. It’s a heck of a game.

Ella: How do you feel about your performance? What did you do well and what can you improve on?

Joe: Coach Price was changing a lot of the play calls and stuff like that like I said on defense. I didn’t really play a whole lot of offense; I played guard and I only played a couple because they try to preserve me for defense. I can always do better, I always tell myself that even after the game today I knew I could do better. I missed a couple sacks. I was trying to take the double teams and triple teams and just trying to get low. I could definitely get lower and try to use my hands more. Just overall gotta upgrade my tenacity and violence and just eat.

Ella: Did y’all have any momentum that carried over from the Lighthouse game?

Joe: Oh we definitely did. This week at practice I was trying to make sure that the boys didn’t let up because sometimes after a win like that, a big win, everyone’s just kind of like, “oh we’re cruising now” I gave them a talk yesterday and they liked it apparently. At the end I was saying, “Hey boys, we gotta whoop ’em until he** freezes over and then we gotta whoop ’em on the ice.” and that got them going. I think we showed up today. We started slower than we could have but we brought some Lighthouse aggression into the game. But we could have played a better game overall.

Ella: Who are some of your teammates that stood out to you in tonight’s game?

Joe: Drew. Definitely Drew QB1. The d-line really held their own; me and Mark especially. And the whole rest of the d-line too; Tim, Thomas, and Pete. Pete came in this week; he doesn’t usually play d-line so he did a good job. We had a lot of aggression; we kind of kept it going. There were some moments where we bent a little bit; we didn’t break though. For me, I was a little tired at the beginning of the game not gonna lie. But the second we got the ball rolling we were doing pretty good. The whole front defensive line and Drew Harrison were amazing. Did a pretty great job.

Ella: How did the d-line do tonight? How did y’all stop the run and pressure the quarterback?

Joe: We were getting punched up the middle and I kept getting triple teamed. So what happened was when I got triple teamed either side was crashing in and I was trying to sack the quarterback. Me and Mark, we have this thing were whenever we get a tackle we always make sure to drive his head into the ground. Just to kind of wear him down so he doesn’t want to keep getting up. That’s what we did against Lighthouse. Not in a mean way. But when a team lines up in front of you they’re looking to beat you so you kind of want to tell them it won’t happen again. I personally love it when the other team’s stands are full so I can show off in front of all of them and be like, “Guys look at me I’m not getting blocked.” I was definitely getting blocked today but it just helps the team.

Ella: What do you hope to accomplish during bye week?

Joe: I want to get more in shape for sure. I can always get faster because there’s always times I reach the quarterback but one hand won’t stop him from running away. Sometimes it does. But I can definitely get more in shape. I want to get a better connection with my teammates; with the boys; and I want to bring everybody closer to God because that’s what we’re playing for. That’s the whole point of the Warriors, that’s the whole point of what we’re doing. I just want to get the ball rolling because from here on up we’re only going up we’re not stopping. We’re going to win the National Championship but that’s not the only thing we’re doing, we’re going to own it. We’re going to own it so the rest of our teams in the future can keep owning it.

reWatch the TSRN Live Stream of the TCW vs Cypress Christian Game

Note: This week is a bye week. On Friday, October 14, The Warriors play the Tulsa NOAH Jaguars. The game is at 7:00 at Curtistene S. McGowan Park in Desoto, Texas. Check the TCW social media for any updates. Game tickets can be purchased online until 10/13 midnight. And then can be purchased at the gate. https://bit.ly/NoahTCW