EARLY – The Early Longhorns’ postseason drought reached its a conclusion after 12 years Friday night, as a 58-6 victory over the San Angelo TLCA Eagles secured the program’s first playoff appearance since 2008.

“We had a good little celebration on the field and I wore some water, it was a lot of fun,” said Early first-year head coach Daniel Price. “We haven’t been here, so it’s a little bit shocking for everyone. It’s a win and we’re all excited but I’m not sure if we all grasp the magnitude of what we did tonight just yet. We finally made that final step and it’s nice to see.”

In their home finale, the Longhorns (5-4, 2-2) jumped out to a 14-0 lead over TLCA (0-9, 0-4) in the first quarter, carried a 21-6 advantage in the locker room at halftime, and padded the cushion to 49-6 after three periods.

Early finished with 375 yards of total offense – 268 rushing and 107 passing – and overcame three turnovers – two fumbles and an interception.

Alex Jacobs rushed for 119 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries while Tre Beam chipped in 89 yards and two scores on five rushes. Kaleb Ozuna tacked on 32 yards on four carries and Wade Kennedy rushed for 28 yards on eight attempts.

Through the air, Jaxyn Price connected on 10 of 18 passes for 107 yards with one touchdown and one interception. John-Stewart Gordon caught two passes for 39 yards and scored once, Caleb McCullough added two receptions for 12 yards and Caydon Laird caught two passes for 4 yards. Also hauling in receptions were Tyson Tyler (25-yarder), Jeremy Brown (19-yarder), and Rylie Hill (8-yarder).

Early also added a special teams touchdown on a 70-yard kick return for six points by Beam.

“We made some mistakes in the first half, we had three turnovers, and we tried to clean those things up and I was glad to see the boys come out and finish,” Price said. “We didn’t play real clean in the first half, but we came out in the second half and played real clean, played our kind of ball and got where we needed to be with some scoring drives in the third quarter.”

On the defensive end, Early yielded just 110 yards – 101 through the air and 9 on the ground on 33 carries – while also forcing a pair of turnovers.

“Defensively, we struggled early with getting some rush control so it was good to see we cleaned that up,” Price said. “The secondary did a good job in the second half of shutting them down. They got some big plays on us in the first half, but in the second half we limited those. It was good to see those boys grow up a little bit tonight and make some plays.”

Early closes out the regular season next week at Wall (5-3, 3-1) – which knocked off Clyde, 36-13, Friday night. Another Longhorn victory could improve Early’s seeding, depending on the outcome of the Jim Ned-Clyde game.

“We’re excited about playing Wall, which may be weird to say,” Price said. “We feel like we have a good match-up, we’ve been playing well against the run, but the offense they run is hard to prepare for. I think we have some guys up front defensively that can keep us in the game and hopefully we can score a few points and give ourselves a chance.”