La Porte defeats Deer Park in Border Battle rivalry high school football game in new Bulldog Stadium

LA PORTE, Texas (KTRK) — The first Friday night in the high school football season was a huge community event in La Porte, and the Bulldogs gave their fans a big 35-31 win against rival Deer Park.

It would have been a huge game on its own playing Deer Park, but La Porte had more to celebrate than just the 65th meeting between the two schools on the field.

Bulldogs opened their ‘new’ $56 million Bulldog Stadium to a sell-out crowd of almost 9,000 fans. The Dogs played all their home games on the road the past two seasons while their stadium was being built.

The game went all the way down to the wire and was decided inside 30 seconds to play when Deer Park was driving for the game-winning touchdown. Jacob Berneathy, nephew of La Porte Head Coach Kevin Berneathy, applied pressure to Deer Park quarterback Hayden LaFrenz on 4th and goal at the 22, Lafrenz threw it up, and junior Cade Watson’s hands to secure the La Porte win.

It’s the first time in five years the Bulldogs have won the Border Battle rivalry game.

It didn’t look good for the home team early in the game. Deer Park jumped out to a 17-0 first quarter lead, but the Bulldogs settled in to score 21 straight second-quarter points behind two rushing touchdowns by sophomore Sean Simon and a touchdown pass by Aiden Saenz. Deer Park led 24-21 at half. The second half was back and forth until 3:19 to play when La Porte took the lead for good on an Ashton Ruffin touchdown run.