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Duncanville narrowly avoids an upset in dramatic comeback led by star Keelon Russell

Russell threw a game-winning 22-yard touchdown pass to Zach Turner with 1:57 left to give Duncanville a 28-24 win and its 31st victory in its last 32 games.

DUNCANVILLE — The Texas High School Coaches Association doesn’t like its schools playing out-of-state opponents, especially private schools, because it worries that Texas athletes will be recruited by their opponents.

But for Duncanville, there are few other options during nondistrict play. That’s because very few Texas teams are willing to play a juggernaut that has won back-to-back Class 6A Division I state championships and is ranked No. 4 in the nation.

That’s why Duncanville didn’t have a Week 1 game this season, and it’s why Saturday night it hosted St. Frances Academy from Maryland in a matchup of nationally ranked powerhouses at Panther Stadium. It marked the seventh straight season that Duncanville has played an out-of-state opponent, and St. Frances traveled nearly 1,400 miles to battle the No. 1 team in Texas.

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It took a dramatic comeback for Duncanville to avoid an upset. It was no surprise that five-star Alabama pledge Keelon Russell spearheaded the rally.

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Russell capped an 87-yard drive by throwing a game-winning 22-yard touchdown pass to Zach Turner with 1:57 left to give Duncanville a 28-24 win and its 31st victory in its last 32 games. Lamar pledge Nehemiah Borner clinched the win with three consecutive sacks, including one on fourth down, to end St. Frances’ final drive.

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St. Frances almost pulled off a shocking win thanks to an extraordinary defensive play.

With Duncanville (2-0) driving for a possible game-clinching score, Auburn pledge Blake Woodby jumped a route, made an interception and returned it 76 yards to the Duncanville 6-yard line. Five-star Duncanville wide receiver Dakorien Moore, one of the fastest players in the nation, chased down Woodby to save a touchdown, but Maurice Medley gave St. Frances a 24-21 lead with 4:26 left on the next play, an 11-yard touchdown run and successful two-point conversion run.

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Russell started Duncanville’s comeback from 16-7 down with a 4-yard touchdown run with 5:26 left in the third quarter, then threw a go-ahead 60-yard touchdown pass to three-star wide receiver Ayson Theus with 22 seconds left in the quarter to put Duncanville ahead 21-16. The nation’s third-ranked senior quarterback finished 20 of 26 for 265 yards and three touchdowns, and also ran for 40 yards and a score.

Few teams in America can make Duncanville look mortal. DeSoto is the only team to beat Duncanville since the start of the 2022 season, winning 49-35 last year to end Duncanville’s 22-game winning streak and 47-game district winning streak.

But Duncanville’s only scoring in the first half came on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Russell to Theus on the first drive of the game. Duncanville gained 71 yards on that drive but had just 76 yards the rest of the half, punted three times and trailed 9-7 at halftime after Syracuse pledge Haleem Muhammad returned a fumble 25 yards for St. Frances’ only touchdown of the first half.

St. Frances (2-2) dominated in rushing yards in the first half, outgaining Duncanville 135-50 as Jaylen Burke ran for 129 yards on 14 carries. Duncanville held Burke to 24 yards in the second half.

St. Frances took advantage of another turnover in the third quarter after recovering a muffed punt that hit a Duncanville player. On the first play of the ensuing possession, Bryce Deas — an Auburn pledge rated the 54th-best linebacker in the nation — raced 39 yards for a touchdown to extend the St. Frances lead to 16-7.

Moore, committed to Oregon, is the No. 1 wide receiver in the nation in the Class of 2025 and was often matched up against Woodby, a four-star recruit who is rated the 13th-best cornerback in the nation. Moore was held to four catches for 34 yards, but Turner had 11 catches for 131 yards and a touchdown and Theus caught five passes for 101 yards and two scores.

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St. Frances is a private school team full of major-college recruits that plays a national schedule. In its last trip to Texas, St. Frances crushed DeSoto 47-7 in Fort Worth in 2022, handing DeSoto its worst loss since a 45-0 area-round playoff loss to Irving Nimitz in 1996.

That 2022 DeSoto team went on to win the first of back-to-back 6A Division II state titles.

St. Frances is happy to play anyone in the country, and the nation’s 22nd-ranked team played games in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California this season before coming to Texas. Six days after facing Duncanville, it is scheduled to play at Mater Dei (Calif.), the No. 1 team in the MaxPreps national rankings.

The St. Frances offensive line is more massive than many in college football, averaging 6-3 and 312 pounds for the nine linemen on the roster, and three of those players have FBS offers. Four- and three-star recruits committed to Auburn, Tennessee, Indiana and Syracuse are spread across the defense for the Baltimore-based program, and quarterback Tristan Sabb and wide receiver James Branch, both sophomores, already have a combined 10 FBS offers, with Branch holding one from defending national champion Michigan.

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Duncanville is 5-2 against out-of-state opponents since 2018, with its biggest victory a 35-14 win in 2019 against St. John’s College, a Washington, D.C., private school that was No. 16 in the country. But Duncanville was overmatched against two teams ranked No. 1 nationally at the time, losing 41-14 to Florida’s IMG Academy in 2020 and falling 45-3 to Mater Dei (Calif.) in 2021.

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