Waskom scored a 34-8 win over Daingerfield on Friday at SFA’s Homer Bryce Stadium in Nacogdoches.

NACOGDOCHES — Prior to taking the field for Friday night’s Class 3A Division II quarterfinals matchup against the Daingerfield Tigers, the Waskom Wildcats ran through a banner that read, “Teams to Remember Play in December.”

Waskom made the next 48 minutes of game play worth remembering as they came away with the 34-8 victory to punch their ticket to the state semifinals where the Wildcats will face Franklin, a 66-0 winner over Poth on Friday.

Waskom had a time of possession of 30 minutes and 41 seconds, an aspect that athletic director and head football coach Whitney Keeling saw as a big one.

“When we talked about that earlier in the week, I thought that was one of our keys to victory,” Keeling said. “Our kids believe in that. Four yards to them is fine. It’s not the prettiest thing but it doesn’t matter to them. They’re going to keep plugging. They enjoy it. That’s the mentality of our team and we performed really well at it tonight.”

Waskom finished the night with exactly 400 yards total offense for the second week in a row, all of which came on the ground. DJ Feaster rushed nine times for 137 yards and two touchdowns. Tesean Hamilton had 18 carries for 81 yards and two scores. Jayvis Jones had 68 yards on five carries. Cole Watson rushed nine times for 42 yards and one touchdown. The Wildcats came away with 24 first downs, doubling the amount of first downs for the Tigers.

Daingerfield was held to just 169 yards of total offense, 111 of which came through the air and 58 on the ground. Chase Johnson went 14-of-25 passing for 111 yards and an interception and scored the Tigers’ only touchdown of the night. Dcorian Wright had 12 carries for 60 yards.

Waskom forced Daingerfield to punt on the opening possession. The Wildcats were faced with fourth-and-6 before Jones took the handoff and ran down the visitor sideline for a gain of 38 yards. Feaster found the end zone on the next play for the first points of the game. Ezequiel Ruiz tacked on the extra point to give Waskom a 7-0 lead with four minutes left in the opening quarter.

Daingerfield responded with a 16-play, 70-yard drive down the field that was capped off by a five-yard touchdown run from Johnson. Johnson then went up the middle on the quarterback sneak for the 2-point conversion to give the Tigers an 8-7 lead with 8:30 left to play in the second quarter.

Hamilton went up the middle for a 10-yard touchdown run to put his Wildcats back in front with 3:48 left in the first half. That was the last score of the first half as the Wildcats took their 14-8 lead into halftime.

The second play of the second half saw Feaster go the distance from 77 yards out. The extra point was not good but the Wildcats led 20-8 with 11:08 left in the third quarter.

Hamilton found the end zone for his second time of the night when he ran it in from less than a yard out with 5:35 left in the third quarter. The 2-point conversion failed, leaving Waskom with a 26-8 lead.

The Wildcats scored the last touchdown of the night with 11:24 left in the fourth quarter when Watson scored on an 11-yard quarterback sneak. Feaster punched it in for the 2-point conversion to make the final score 34-8.

The next round will see Waskom go head-to-head with Franklin.

“They’re an unbelievable team,” Keeling said. “They’ve rolled over everybody but we’re going to go to the drawing board, get a plan together and hopefully we can duplicate what we did tonight.”