The Anton Bulldogs came up on the short end of a dogfight in a 78-27 loss to the visiting Spur Bulldogs in UIL high school sixman football action last Friday.
Anton struggled, spotting Spur 16 points in the first quarter and giving up 32 unanswered points in the second, but wouldn’t just go away. Spur finally scored enough points to invoke the 45-point rule on a fourth quarter score with 8:18 on the clock.
The 45 point rule states that, in six-man football, whenever one team is ahead by 45 points or more after half-time, the game is called.
Anton closed the gap to 16-6 at the start of the second quarter on a four yard pass from Dominic Gaitan to Joe Whillock, but didn’t score again until right at the halftime buzzer when Gaitan found Gavin Martinez open for a nine yard scoring pass.
In the meantime, Spur had put up 32 points for a 48-14 lead at halftime.
Spur intercepted a Gaitan pass early in the third quarter to make the score 56-14, but Anton responded with another Gaitan to Whillock combination for five yards, followed by a Martinez to Whillock pass for 20 yards, cutting the Spur lead to 56-27 with 1:56 left in the third quarter.
After that, it was all Spur. They scored again with 1:16 left in the third quarter, then put another touchdown up just seven seconds into the fourth quarter.
The final nail in Anton’s coffin came at the 8:18 mark.
Gaitan went 12-for-25 for 165 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions.
Martinez was 1-for-1 for a 20 yard touchdown.
Martinez had nine carries for 31 yards. Autilano Castillo had eight carries for five yards.
Whillock had nine catches for 140 yards and three touchdowns. Jose Avalos had two catches for 29 yards.
Martinez had two catches for 16 yards and a touchdown.
Whillock had four tackles. Castillo and Martinez had three each. Avalos had 1 ½. Gaitan, Noah Salsman and Brandon Thomas had one each.
Martinez had two kick returns for 19 yards. Connor Armstrong had one for seven yards. Avalos had two for three yards.
Castillo had one for minus one yard.
Anton looks to get on the winning track in Hart Friday. Game time is 7:30 p.m.