TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS — For the second straight week, Tahlequah played a good first quarter against one of the best teams in the state.

Unfortunately, No.5 East Central used a second quarter scoring outburst, much like Ada a week ago, to top the Tigers 46-6 in the season finale at Doc Wadley Stadium on Friday.

“I thought we played pretty well defensively at times,” said Tigers coach Tuffy Thornton. “Offensively, we moved the ball, but had four turnovers again.”

The teams played even for the first six minutes until the Cardinals got on the board with a Dillon Wallace 43-yard touchdown pass. Kicker Antonio Escobedo missed the extra point to make it 6-0 with 5:25 left in the opening quarter.

In the second quarter, the game got away from Tahlequah (2-8, 1-6 5A-4) as the Cardinals outscored them 27-0.

Wallace got the scoring started with 11:14 left in the half when he tossed his second touchdown pass, this time from 31 yards out. Escobedo added the extra point to put East Central in front 13-0.

On the Tigers next drive, things got worse when sophomore Zack Thornton had his pass intercepted by East Central’s Keith Ross and returned 40 yards for a touchdown. The two-point conversion failed to make it 19-0 with 9:37 left in the first half.

After another turnover halted the next Tahlequah drive, the Cardinals capitalized again with another score. This time is was a 69-yard pass from Wallace to Ross at the 7:42 mark. The extra point was converted to push the East Central lead to 26-0.

The final second quarter touchdown came with 38.9 seconds left when Wallace tossed his fourth touchdown pass from 29 yards away. Escobedo made the extra point to make the halftime deficit 33 points.

Coming out of halftime, the Tigers put together a solid scoring drive that was capped by a Thornton 1-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Colin Downs with 2:50 left in the quarter.

“I thought our drive to open the second half was spectacular,” said Thornton.

East Central (9-1, 7-0 5A-4) added two more touchdowns to push the final margin to 46-6. The first of those came with 2:22 left in the third quarter on a Chakeal Armstrong 28-yard run.

Tahlequah junior Taylor Harris led the team with 59 yards on 14 carries. Downs added 19 yards on the ground.

Thornton finished 12-of-24 passing with 71 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions. He added 10 yards on the ground.

Senior Jackson Smith led the Tigers in receiving in his final game with two catches for 38 yards. Fellow senior Gunner Luna added two catches for 21 yards.

With the loss, Tahlequah finished the season seventh in District 5A-4 ahead of Tulsa Edison.

East Central clinched the district championship with last week’s win over McAlester and will be the district’s No.1 seed when the postseason begins next week.