Coming off an exhilarating victory over Del Rio last week, Alexander didn't miss a beat as it got back to work Saturday night at the SAC, dispatching the Nixon Mustangs, 48-14, in a game that was never.
The Bulldogs got off to a quick start, scoring on six of their first seven drives.
Their efforts were often aided by Nixon mistakes, as the Mustangs fumbled on two of their first three possessions to twice give Alexander short fields to work with.
Alexander's defense started strong and only improved as the night went on, forcing four turnovers and holding Nixon to negative yards in the second half.
The Bulldogs' defense harassed Mustangs quarterback Manny Martinez relentlessly, though they only reached him once for a sack. Martinez completed eight of 19 passes for 27 yards and a single interception, in addition to scrambling for nine yards on six carries.
Mustangs head football coach Tommy Ramirez again reached into his bag of tricks to produce his team's biggest play of the night.
Early in the second quarter and down 27-7, Martinez threw a backward pass to Jesus Perez, who then launched the ball downfield to a wide-open Jesus Hinojosa.
Hinojosa ably caught the ball and reached the end zone just ahead of the pursuing defense for a 56 -yard touchdown.
Nixon running back Ritchie Rendon led his team in rushing despite having zero carries in the second half. The sophomore running back gained 41 yards on nine attempts, including a 17-yard touchdown run, in the first two quarters of play.
Alexander's offense slowed to a crawl in the second half, scoring only once in the final 24 minutes on a 44-yard touchdown pass from Brian Swain to Xavier Skaggs with six minutes left in the game.
Swain put up impressive numbers as he completed 20 of 33 passes for 243 yards and five touchdowns while being intercepted only once.
The junior quarterback also had an impressive 67-yard touchdown scramble when a play broke down on third-and-long.
Nixon’s defense spent most of the night focused on containing the Bulldogs running game and rushing the quarterback and they succeeded, sacking Swain six times.
Alexander sophomore running back Xavier Skaggs had only 50 rushing yards on 11 attempts, but contributed 108 receiving yards on 10 catches, three of which went for touchdowns.
Bulldogs wide receiver Bobby Bowen emerged as his team's primary threat in the second half, accounting for half of Alexander's second-half yards by bringing in four catches for 66 yards.
Alexander’s offense dwarfed Nixon's as the Bulldogs registered 389 total yards compared to the Mustangs' 140.
Worse news than the final score for Nixon was a severe lower leg injury to linebacker Robert Rocha suffered in the second half.
Rocha suffered the injury while covering a Bulldogs punt return and it wasn't clear exactly what happened to cause it.
The stretcher was called out to the field and Rocha was taken away by an ambulance for further treatment.
The game pitted two familiar friends against each other. Ramirez, in his first year at the helm of Nixon, and Alexander coach Joel Lopez grew up in Zapata together and attended the same high school.
Ramirez was also Lopez's defensive coordinator from 1999-2003 when Lopez was the head coach at Nixon then. Together, they won three consecutive district championships.
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