Just two plays into Friday’s season-opener against El Paso Bowie the Fort Stockton football team looked as if they were in mid-season form and a dominant victory was on the horizon.

The Panthers defense recovered a fumble on the first play of the game from the line of scrimmage on the Bears 32-yard line. Quarterback Dominic Aguilar and starting running back Corbin Luna ensued on a connection via seam route ran by the sophomore.

The senior signal caller lofted the ball with ease to a wide open Luna for a 32-yard receiving touchdown on Fort Stockton’s first offensive play of the season to gain a 6-0 lead.

“That was a big part of our success. We got up on them early and we were able to have enough momentum to hold them off at the end,” Fort Stockton head coach Mike Peters said.

The rest of the game proved to be an Aguilar highlight reel and a gritty performance by the Panthers defense.

Aguilar scored Fort Stockton’s final four touchdowns of the game with his legs – two of which were runs over 50 yards – to lead the Panthers to a 32-21 victory.

The four rushing touchdowns by the senior signal caller doubled his previous career high in a single game and nearly matched his TD total on the ground last season (5).

“Dom really was a sparkplug for us like he often is. We did well and made some adjustments up front offensive line wise and were able to get him open and run,” Peters said.

Luna played an important role on the ground as well, having a career high in carries and yards gained on the ground in his first starting stint in the backfield in his career.

“Corbin is a good back and a tough kid. He’s talented. He’ll just get better with time. A game like tonight where he has to carry the workload a little bit, it kind of put him in a situation where he understands what he has to do,” Peters said.

Bowie responded with a 5-yard rushing TD after Fort Stockton’s first score of the game to take a 7-6 lead over the Panthers. The Bears maintained that advantage until the final three minutes of the first half with a defense that forced three consecutive Fort Stockton punts.

Aguilar gained the lead back for good for his team with a 40-yard run, making it a 13-7 game with two minutes to play in the second quarter.

That advantage increased to 19-7 after a 61-yard run through the middle of the Bears defense by Aguilar on the first play from scrimmage in the second half.

Bowie responded on their first drive of the second half, which took up nearly seven minutes of game clock, to cut the Panthers lead down to 19-14 with 5:34 left in the third quarter.

Aguilar found the end zone two more times in the third quarter on runs of 3 and 55 yards, putting the game essentially out of reach with the lead at 32-14.

The Bears scored on a 39-yard pass two minutes into the final quarter of play to conclude the contest.

Fort Stockton made life tough for Bowie senior quarterback Aaron Ramirez Jr. throughout Friday’s game. The Panthers pass rush was in the backfield often as the unit tallied five sacks and 19 hurries.

“They played hard,” Peters said of his defense. “You have to gut those games out. Bowie plays with a lot of pride and have a lot of talented kids. We were able to defensively hang in there and like I said in the interview earlier, get the ball enough times to score.”

Isaiah Velasquez, Jayden Luna, and Carlos Perez each led the Panthers with one sack apiece.

Fort Stockton’s run defense was equally as successful, recording 13.5 tackles for loss. Defensive lineman Rito Gomez and linebacker Jaydrien Ramirez each had two tackles for loss each to lead the unit.

Ramirez led the Panthers with 12 tackles while Jordan Franco was second on the team with 11. Velasquez finished with 10 tackles and secured the Bears only turnover, recovering the game-opening fumble, which was forced by senior Elijah Escajeda.

Fort Stockton will have their home-opener on Friday, Sept. 3 against Alpine with kickoff set for 7 p.m.

Click here to view a photo gallery of Friday's game.