Roos ride into playoffs with 5-game win streak Posted On: Saturday, Nov. 7 2009 05:40 AM By Kevin Posival
Killeen Daily Herald

PFLUGERVILLE – Somewhere between Jaquail Haskins' 42-yard run on Killeen's first drive and Mitchell Salak's 41-yard reception on third-and-19 late in the fourth, the Killeen Kangaroos found their offensive form.

Haskins scored twice in Killeen's first three offensive plays, quarterback Michael Cummings had his first rushing touchdowns in nearly a month and Killeen (8-2, 5-1 25-4A) will ride a five-game winning streak into next week's playoff game after beating Pflugerville Hendrickson 35-27 Friday night.

"They were real big because we started executing again like we started," Jones said of Haskins' early scores. "At the first, the beginning of the season, we could move the ball down at will and it just showed up (Friday)."

Killeen opens the playoffs with Austin LBJ at Round Rock's Dragon Stadium next Friday at 7:30.

Hendrickson (5-4, 3-3), which has lost its last two, plays Austin Travis in the Division II bracket.

"Last year (Hendrickson) kind of took it to us and we didn't know how we were going to fair in the playoffs but this year, we know if we play like we did, especially like we did the first 10 minutes, we know we can do pretty well."

Kenny Williams, the district's leading rusher, ran for 221 yards and the Hawks final two touchdowns that cut Killeen's 19-point lead to seven with 1:14 left. The Hawks' onside kick was illegally touched at the Hendrickson 47 – 3 yards short of the 10-yard minimum – and Cummings was able to kneel twice to run out the clock.

Salak's long reception continued a drive that eventually stalled with a missed 50-yard field goal, but ate nearly four minutes off the clock between Williams' fourth-quarter touchdown runs.

"(Williams) is a good, tough runner," Jones said. "He's run like on everybody. We're where we need to be. We're in the playoffs, we just need to get better every week. And see what we can do and see how far we can go."

The junior ran for 85 yards on nine carries on the Hawks' second drive of the game, already down 14-0, but it was quarterback Damarion Jackson's 2-yard with 1:50 left in the first that cut Killeen's to seven.

Jackson then completed a 52-yard touchdown pass to Will Ward after a Killeen three-and-out and Williams ran in the 2-point conversion that put the Hawks up, briefly, 15-14, 65 seconds after their first score.

Cummings completed a 79-yard completion to Rodney Brown on the last play of the first quarter and threw a three-yard touchdown pass to tight end Anthony Jenkins on the first play of the second.

Hendrickson was forced to punt after a 20-yard kept fumble and Cummings' 41-yard touchdown keeper, his first touchdown since the Roos' 45-7 rout of Marble Falls before the bye week, came six plays later that put Killeen up 28-15 at halftime.

"It was good, it got us into a rhythm that we've been missing since the bye week," said Cummings, who threw for 268 yards and ran for 42, including a 16-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. "It feels like we're back on track."

The Roos offense, which had averaged just 368 total yards in their last two games, posted 297 in the first half.

After Haskins' 42-yard on Killeen's second play from scrimmage, he scored on a 54-yard screen pass on the first play of the Roos' next drive, after their defense forced Hendrickson to punt.

"We're going to have to go on the road next week and probably have to go on the road the following week so we've got to learn to play on the road. That's why I didn't mind having this one. I wanted to win on the road. Everybody said this one doesn't mean anything but it does mean something because we learned how to play on the road."

Contact Kevin Posival at kposival@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7562.