FORT WORTH — The Cleburne Yellow Jackets opened the season with a convincing 48-7 win over South Hills on Thursday night at Clark Stadium.

The Jackets dominated the Scorpions on both sides of the ball, as the offense racked up 436 total yards, including 255 yards on the ground.

Junior quarterback Ty Taylor, making his first varsity start, finished finished 11-of-18 for 181 yards and three touchdowns. Semaj Holderness caught two scoring passes from Taylor and gained 87 receiving yards.

Holderness opened the scoring for Cleburne with a 64 yard touchdown reception with 9:45 left in the first quarter that gave the Jackets an early 6-0 lead.

“I was real nervous at the beginning, I’m not going to lie,” Taylor said. “But when I threw that pass to Semaj everything just kind of calmed down. I kept on trying to read my keys and throw a catchable ball. If it was close they were going to catch it.”

South Hills answered with a 58 yard pass from Jerred Williams to David Diaz and the extra point gave the Scorpions a 7-6 lead.

From that point on, Cleburne scored 42 unanswered points.

“I don’t know if I expected it or not, but I was hopeful,” Cleburne head coach Phil Young said. “Our team played with a lot of enthusiasm and responded well when we got down on the first drive or two when they scored and went up a point. Everybody responded and nobody lost composure. We’ve got to get better at so many things, but that can be coached. The coaches had good game plans tonight. We were pretty basic with what we did, but I saw some fight out of our kids.”

Robert White gave Cleburne a 13-7 lead with a three-yard run and Trace Turner caught a 16 yard pass from Taylor to stretch the lead to 19-7 with 10:43 left in the first half.

White scored on a one-yard run with 3:32 left in the second period to make it 26-7 and the Jackets took a 28-7 lead into the break when South Hills was charged with a safety when the snap sailed over the punter’s head and through the end zone.

“Our defense was flying around,” Young said. “We gave up that one long pass that he barely got off. We got in some short field positions that makes our offense not have to go as far. That gives them a lot of confidence that we can do some things.”

After the free kick gave the ball back to Cleburne, Taylor found Holderness for a 23 yard scoring pass with 57 seconds left to make it 35-7.

“It’s good because they have trust in me and I have trust in them,” Taylor said of the receivers. “And my line really blocked well for me. There were some big holes out there.”

Cleburne running back Micah McCoy scored on a 69 yard run in the third quarter and Jose Martinez returned an interception 42 yards with 3:31 left in the game to round out the scoring.

The game did not start off as promising for Cleburne, as offensive lineman Alex Woody was carted off the field on the first play.

Young said he was pleased with how the Jackets responded to that adversity.

“When Alex Woody went down on the first play our bellies dropped right there,” Young said. “He’s a great young man and comes from a great family. That kind of broke our hearts, but our kids responded well and said, ‘Let’s play hard for Woody and make sure he’ll be proud of what we do.’”

On Wednesday night the Jackets’ junior varsity claimed a 32-0 win over South Hills, while the freshmen won 56-0 at Yellow Jacket Stadium.