Denton Guyer overtakes Rockwall-Heath in season football opener
Aug. 30—The 2023 football season got off to a good start for Rockwall-Heath with a quick defensive stand, followed by seven-play, 47-yard drive and a quick 6-0 lead when Caleb Hoover punched it in on a 1-yard touchdown plunge.
Hoover added a 38-yard scoring strike to Jack Davenport midway through the second quarter for a 14-7 lead but the highlights ended there with Denton Guyer (1-0) reeling off 35 straight points — 28 in the second half — to claim a 42-14 win on Friday at Wilkerson-Sanders Memorial Stadium.
Hoover finished with 114 yards on 12-of-19 passing and carried the ball 13 times for 14 yards. Malachi Tuesno had 39 yards on 11 touches to lead the Hawk ground game. Davenport (four catches for 40 yards) and Fletcher Fierro (three for 46 yards) led the receiving corps.
Guyer, No. 5 in the SportsDay preseason Class 6A area standings, may have started slow but the Wildcats dominated Heath (0-1) on the stat sheet — outgaining the Hawks 420-162 in total yards with most of the damage coming after the intermission. Five different Guyer ball carriers combined for 180 yards rushing to Heath's 48 and quarterback Logan McLaughlin was 10-of-15 passing for 195 yards and three touchdowns.
Trailing 14-7 late in the second quarter, the Wildcats drove 85 yards to paydirt — tying the game at 14-14 with McLaughlin finding Corbin Glasco for a 43-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the opening half. The score was the first offensive touchdown of the first half with the Wildcats' finding the end zone initially on a special teams play with a recovered fumbled Heath snap in the end zone.
Guyer added three touchdowns (on just four drives) in the third quarter to take a commanding 35-14 advantage to the final period. Heath's offense stalled heavily in the second half and failed to reach the red zone once with four of seven drives producing negative yardage.
The Hawks, No. 15 in the SportsDay rankings, will look to pick up their first win of the season on Sept. 1 when they travel to Pennington Field to take on Euless Trinity. The Trojans (0-1) rallied late with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns but fell just short in a 42-41 loss to Prosper.
