Little Rock Christian’s Paxton Thomas scored four touchdowns to lead the Warriors to a 43-29 victory over Central Arkansas Christian Friday night at Warrior Field.
A senior who usually lines up at receiver, Thomas ran for three touchdowns and grabbed a touchdown pass for the Warriors (2-1).
“Paxton is just a stud,” Warriors Coach Jeff Weaver said. “He plays great every night and tonight was one of those nights where we were able to get the ball to him a few times. Last week, they focused on taking him away and some others stepped up. “
Thomas ran for 77 yards on six carries and scored on runs of 14, 10 and 25 yards. He also caught a 10-yard touchdown pass from Houston Angel in the third quarter.
After a 14-14 first half, Thomas, who also grabbed 10 passes for 97 yards, caught his touchdown pass to help the Warriors regain the lead and he added his second touchdown run to make it 28-14 with 10:19 left in the third quarter.
“We felt like in the first half we kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” Weaver said. “Finally in the second half we were able to find some rhythm. I really felt like that would be a little bit of a shootout and fortunately our defense was able to come up with some stops.’’
The Warriors took the lead on a 31-yard pass from Angel to sophomore Joe Hampton, and Kevin Zust kicked the extra point to make it 7-0. It stayed that way until a scoring volley in the final three minutes of the half.
CAC scored on an 8-yard run by sophomore Braylon Harris but missed the extra point. At the 1:12 mark, Thomas scored on a 14-yard run and kicked the extra point to make it 14-6. CAC junior Stephen Flanigan grabbed a 27-yard touchdown pass from Jack Thomas and Adam Weiner caught the two-point pass for a 14-14 halftime score.
Trailing 28-14, CAC got back in it by sandwiching a 2-yard touchdown run by Angel with two scores. The first came on a 53-yard pass from Jack Thomas to Jack Partlow. The Mustangs then answered Angel with a 5-yard touchdown run by Jack Thomas with 6:13 left and Partlow ran in for the conversion after a bad snap to make it 35-29 with 6:13 left.
Paxton Thomas’ final scoring run, from 25 yards out, with 3:06 left iced it.
Sports, Pages 28 on 09/21/2013