Fort Stockton’s bid to become the first team in school history to win 11 games came up short on Thursday at San Angelo Stadium in the area round of the 4A-2 playoffs against ninth-ranked Glen Rose.

The Panthers lost a pair of their star players in the first three possessions of the game and the Tigers showed why they were six-time defending district champions behind quarterback Hudson White in a 63-12 victory.

“Those guys were a machine, just like we had seen on film coming into the game. We knew that it was going to be a heck of task,” Fort Stockton head coach Jeremy Hickman said. “I fully expected us to come out here and win the game. But those guys came out here hitting on all cylinders and they really put on a show.”

White, who had 43 TDs (25 rushing, 18 passing) coming into the game, threw six touchdown passes and rushed for two additional scores in the first half alone to make it a 56-0 contest at halftime for Glen Rose.

On the other side of the ball, Fort Stockton failed to record a first down in the first two quarters of play.

Senior linebacker Daren Ureste suffered a game-ending lower body injury on the opening kickoff and fellow senior playmaker Isaiah Garica was knocked out of the game with a heel injury on the third series of the contest.

“Daren is the heartbeat of the team. You could feel the disappointment and the pain for him. The team losing that leader is tough and a hard thing to overcome,” Hickman noted. “The kids fought and were resilient. We tried our best to replace him, but you can’t replace a player like that. You can’t replace that heart. Then losing IG at the same time two series later just was devasting.”

In the second half, Fort Stockton showed their willingness to never give up – as they have all season.

The Panther starters were left in the game against the Glen Rose reserves and made the most of what would be the last opportunity for many on the gridiron.

Junior running back Corbin Luna punched in his 10th rushing touchdown of the season from five yards out with 58 seconds left in the third quarter to make it a 63-6 game.

Zane Hodges finished his football career as a Panther with his second TD of the season via a 20-yard reception from Marco Garcia with 5:15 left in the fourth quarter.

Hickman mentioned that he was proud of the way his team never gave up despite their deficit at the break.

“I was very proud of their resiliency and trying to fight and do the best we could,” he said. “That’s what we talked about at halftime, having pride. Let’s go out and fight and don’t worry about the score. Put something on the board and build off success.”

The first-year head coach reflected after Thursday’s game and told his team that they will always be remembered for what they accomplished and for the foundation that they set for generations to come.

“Being a former Panther to these Panthers, I couldn’t be more thankful to this senior class. They welcomed me with open arms and did everything we asked them to do and lead the way I asked them to do that. These guys are going to be hard to replace. You can’t replace these guys,” he said. “The Class of 2023 was a tremendous vault into the right direction for the program starting from last year to this year and the year before. Those guys will always be remembered for what they did for the program.”

Moving forward, Hickman plans to continue the growth of the program through togetherness and hard work in the offseason.

“If you want to know the secret it’s going to be really building camaraderie and building important group effort type things where we support each other, we cheer on each other, we get excitement and build each other up,” he said. “We want to build an empowering program and an empowering team that builds off each other.”