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Pearland teams vie for 7-on-7 state title
Published July 10, 2009
Two Brazoria County teams will play this week in the 12th annual 7-on-7 State Championship.
Pearland and Pearland Dawson will battle in the Division I tournament today and Saturday at the Penberthy Intramural Fields on the Texas A&M campus in College Station. A total of 64 Class 4A and 5A teams will play for the title.
Dawson, entering its second year of varsity competition, is making its first appearance with some talented players.
“We are going to be a bit inexperienced because this is our first time,” Dawson 7-on-7 coach Ryan Silvertooth said. “Last year, we played in just one qualifier without any seniors. And this year, we were in three qualifiers. We are excited to be going up there.”
Dawson and Pearland both qualified May 30 at a tournament in Texas City. The Oilers finished first.
The 64 teams at the state tournament finished first or second in one of 32 area qualifiers across Texas.
Teams will be divided into 16 pools in College Station before bracket play Saturday. Dawson is in Pool H with Arlington Lamar, Cedar Park and Houston Stratford.
Taking the snaps for the Eagles is Darian Lazard, who was the newcomer of the year in the county last season. Lazard led Dawson with 1,030 passing yards and threw for eight touchdowns. The speedy quarterback also ran for 905 yards and 12 scores. Dawson averaged 386.8 yards a game in their first season in District 24-4A.
“Darian is a natural leader and has come a long way,” Silvertooth said. “When I first saw him playing quarterback, I never thought he’d get this far, but he has certainly opened a lot of eyes.”
Lazard has committed to play at Utah.
Coming out of the backfield will be Xavier Brown, who has committed to the Houston Cougars.
“He is a solid 6-foot, 200-pounder who can run a 4.8, 40,” Silvertooth said. “He can run good routes.”
Lazard’s other targets will be 5-foot-8 speedster Randal Weeks, Marcus Vaughn (6-foot-1, 195), Micah Tillostson (6-foot-1, 195) and Tiaget Gauthier (6-foot-3).
“We are not looking bad across the board. Micah was our leading receiver last year with 25 catches for 400 yards and five touchdowns,” Silvertooth said.
The Eagles defense is led by Jordan Rose, Stan Jordan, Haywood Jeffries, Pat Coleman, Trey Oliver, David Farris and Lawrence Alanis.
“Five of these guys are sophomores because we had a good freshmen group last year,” Silvertooth said. “Haywood and Pat are sons of former Houston Oilers. But what we want these kids to do is go up there and compete. They might be a bit overwhelmed because some of these schools they’ve never heard of. But there is no doubt we are going to compete.”
Pearland landed in Pool E with Alamo Heights, Arlington Bowie and Tyler Lee.
Each team will play three games in pool play with the top two teams from each pool advancing to the 32-team single-elimination bracket on Saturday. The remaining 32 teams will play in the single-elimination consolation bracket, also Saturday.
Pool play games will start at 1 p.m. today. The consolation and championship games will be played at 4 and 5 p.m. Saturday at Kyle Field.
Rounding out the Division I field are: Abilene, Abilene Cooper, Arlington, Austin Anderson, Bastrop, Beaumont West Brook, Bellaire, Birdville, Cedar Hill, Colleyville Heritage, Conroe Oak Ridge, Coppell, Copperas Cove, Cypress Fairbanks, Denton Guyer, De Soto, Edcouch-Elsa, El Paso Bel Air, El Paso Chapin, Fort Bend Bush, Fort Bend Dulles, Fort Bend Elkins, Garland Lakeview. Hays Consolidated, Hebron, Houston Chavez, Houston Lamar, Jersey Village, Katy, Katy Seven Lakes, Keller Central, Klein, Klein Collins, Klein Forest, Lake Travis, Langham Creek, Lufkin, Mansfield Legacy, Marble Falls, Mission, New Braunfels Canyon, Plano, Plano East, Richardson Pearce, Richland, Round Rock Stony Point, South Garland, Southlake Carroll, Spring, Stephenville, Temple, The Woodlands, Tomball, Vista Ridge, Whitehouse and Wylie.
Joel Luna is the sports editor for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0160.
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