Tornadoes are District Champions After rolling back to back Division I District 2-3A victories in their first two league outings, the Golden Tors found themselves last week only one win away, in the final week of the regular season, from winning a district championship for the first time since 2001. But to do that, the Golden Tors had to achieve another feat, which has only been done here twice in the past 20 years, that being to knock off Denver City on the Mustangs’ own turf. It was 13 years ago that Lamesa beat the Mustangs, 12-9, back in the 2011 season opener. Lamesa’s only other win over Denver City, in the past 20 years, was back in 2004. Another wrinkle to this mix was that Denver City was picked by many to win this district, where the Golden Tors had been picked third behind the Mustangs and Brownfield Cubs. The Golden Tors appeared destined to re-write history last Friday in Yoakum County. A strong start helped pave the way for the now, 4-6, Golden Tors, who ended up holding onto this, 33-29, title clinching victory. “Our guys really played well. We came out strong, which helped us get off to a pretty good start,” Lamesa Coach Efrain Ramos said. “We got off to a good enough cushion, which kept them trailing us most of this game. “We made enough mistakes, though, where we tried giving the game back to them. On our last series, we put in our four minute offense, which turned out being a big difference there at the end.” After starting out this season at, 1-6, the Golden Tors roll into this week’s playoffs as District 2-3A’s top seed. “This is awesome! After starting out this season at, 1-6, we kept telling our kids that we thought that they could still win it,” Coach Ramos sad. “At that point, not many could have believed that we would, but we did!” Golden Tor senior running back Benito Barrioz had another big night carrying the pigskin, with 22 caries for 149 yards and one TD on a 68-yard scamper. “The way that Benito gets after it from week to week, we call him the Bus,” Coach Ramos said. Golden Tor freshman quarterback Daniel Ramos completed eight out of 15 passes, for 104 yards and three TDs at Denver City. “Daniel’s main stat tonight was just getting the win. Daniel was just as happy the other night handing the football off to Benito as he was throwing it,” Coach Ramos said. Junior Cylius McCurley had three catches for 60 yards and two TDs last Friday night. Junior DeeV Lugo had six catches for 94 yards and one TD. Senior linebacker Hector Zamora had one TD catch for three yards. Defensively, Zamora was in on 13 tackles from his linebacking slot, including four solos stops. Senior Xavier Zorola had 12 tackles, including nine solo stops. Zorola also picked off a key Mustang pass. Senior Adam Garcia and junior Brendan Kibler had five tackles each. Garcia also had one caused fumble. “We don’t mind our guys having conservation among themselves about what they’ve already accomplished, but we want everybody’s minds on playing another big football game this week when they come to practice,” Coach Ramos said. The Golden Tors’ first round playoff opponent is Amarillo River Road, who’s already beaten Lamesa once this season, 35-34, in overtime, back on October 11, right here at Golden Tornado Stadium. Both the Golden Tors and River Road Wildcats have identical 4-6 season records going into this re-match, which is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at Peoples Bank Stadium at Frenship High School at Wolfforth. “You normally don’t get second chances like we’re getting this week. After watching some of the film from that first game, we’re hoping that we do a better job this time when it comes to blocking guys like their No. 80 (Zant Marrufo) who kept knocking my son (Daniel) onto the ground pretty violently in that first game,” Coach Ramos said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to correct some of the mistakes that we made in that first game to where we can have a different outcome this time.” A couple of key players to watch, when the Wildcats have the pigskin, are senior quarterback Alex Warren and senior running back Samuel Delgado. Warren ran for 1, 267 yards and 12 TDs on 124 carries this season. Warren has also thrown for 302 yards and six other scores. Delgado is averaging over 106 yards rushing per game Defensively, linenbacker Elijah Urias is the Wildcats’ leading tackles, averaging 11.3 tackles per game. End Zanti Marrufo and linebacker Oscar Olmos are averaging over six tackles per game. “We’ve been very happy with our crowds the way that they’ve, not only been loud, but really get into our games,” Coach Ramos said. “It’s really neat to hear how our crowds really get into situation like third and long, or when we’re playing defense.”