The highly anticipated football game between VYPE Austin No. 1 Hutto (5-1, 2-1) and VYPE Austin No. 2 Cedar Park (7-1, 4-0) did not disappoint at Leander ISD's John Gupton Stadium on Friday. The Hippos set up a UIL 11-5A Division I championship season with a 65-21 win at Hutto Memorial Stadium in 2018, and the 2019 Timberwolves moved closer to achieving that with a 20-16 win.
"It's a game of ebbs and flows," said Cedar Park coach Carl Abseck. "You're going to have some good things happen [and] some bad things happen, but our guys stuck through it and fought to the end. It's a big victory for our kids."
Hutto struck first when Grayson Doggett found Landyn Watson on a two-yard touchdown pass at the 4:19 mark of the opening quarter and added an Evan Gutierrez 45-yard field goal at the 0:54 mark of the second period, but VYPE Player of the Game Ryder Hernandez's two touchdowns helped Cedar Park earn a come-from-behind victory. His first was a 62-yard touchdown pass to Preston Scott with 34 seconds left in the second quarter that tied the score before halftime, and that was preceded by Justin Bohrer's 21-yard field goal at the 7:17 mark of the period.
"We had to fight a lot of adversity tonight," said Hernandez. "It's just a testimony of the culture we have here. Always finishing it out and we always take it in the fourth quarter. Our motto this year is take it back, so we're just trying to take it back one week at a time."
The back and forth trend continued in the second half, but Cedar Park was the first team to score after halftime. Bohrer's 22-yard field goal made it a 13-10 game with 10:12 left in the third period. Then, Hutto took back the lead after Gutierrez's 20 and 28-yard field goals made it a 16-13 game with 10:37 left in the fourth.
Hutto's defense was intimidating throughout the contest, so Hernandez had a hard time finding his groove like other games in 2019. But, he found a late lane for the game-winning 14-yard touchdown run with 1:38 left.
Cedar Park has large goals for the rest of the season, but isn't overlooking the immediate tests ahead.
"We got a bye week this week, so we're going to rest up [and] get everybody to heal up," said Hernandez. "We gotta focus on Pflugerville. They gotta a pretty good team over there too, so we're going to have to prepare for them and then Manor and then obviously the playoffs, which we're planning on making a deep run into."
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