AUSTIN -- When Brenham running back Troy Green was stopped on fourth down at the Aledo 9-yard line, the Bearcats came close to clinching a state championship.

There was still some Gray area left. Aledo running back Johnathan Gray ran 89 yards for a touchdown two plays later, providing a spectacular conclusion to a 35-21 victory in the Class 4A Division II state championship Saturday at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

"For most of the game, everything went to the right, and he hit it up the middle," Brenham linebacker Michael Walker said. "When he hit up the middle, everybody had to dive."

Including Walker, who was Brenham's leading tackler with eight. Walker had the only real shot at stopping Gray short of a first down, but the Aledo back stepped through the diving attempt at an ankle tackle and finished with a sprint to the north end zone.

"It was just a base zone play, the same play we had run for the first touchdown," Aledo coach Tim Buchanan said. "It was the same identical play. We weren't anticipating a touchdown, but we were anticipating a first down."

Gray carried 32 times for 252 yards and four touchdowns. The sophomore got all three Aledo scores in a 21-14 first half to hand the Cubs their second loss in as many tries in the state title game.

After Green was stopped, Brenham held the Bearcats to 2 yards on first two plays of the ensuing possession. With the Cubs needing a stop to regain the ball, Gray lost Brenham defenders early and ran away from them late.

"They worked so hard that you hate to see them not achieve what they wanted to do," Brenham coach Glen West said. "There's a lot of sadness just in the fact that we're done. We just love being with each other. The locker room was very emotional."

As they had done throughout the postseason, Brenham climbed out of a hole.

With regular starting quarterback Matthew Bishop sidelined with a shoulder injury, Trey Ozee played the position exclusively for the Bearcats. He hit three of six passes for 42 yards, but also rushed for 78 yards on nine carries. He sprinted through a gaping hole for a 34-yard score to build a 28-14 lead with 11:10 left in the game.

"Any time you're faking to Johnathan, it's going to open up a lane," Ozee said. "It did, and it was just a foot race to the end zone."

It was redemption for Ozee, who started the season at quarterback, but left the lineup with an injury and moved to slotback when Bishop held the position.

"Never once did that young man show a selfish attitude," Buchanan said. "Whatever was best for our football team is what he did. Part of this win was those football players wanted this win for Trey Ozee at quarterback."

After Aledo's score, Ty Schlottmann found Derek Edwards with a 42-yard pass to the Aledo 35. Schlottmann was hurt two plays later and helped to the sideline. Backup Michael Buro came on third-and-eight, delivering a 33-yard pass to the end zone. Buro lofted the ball in front of Edwards, who ran under it to make the grab. It was Buro's second pass of the post-season and his second scoring toss to Edwards.

"It wasn't really a big deal," Buro said. "I knew what I had to do and said 'Get the job done.' It was about to be pretty awesome if we could have pulled that one out. It has the beginnings of something awesome."

Brenham got the ball back at its 18 and Schlottmann again threw to Edwards, who had a grab in traffic at the Aledo 42. Green had runs of 9 and 3 yards for another first down, and Schlottmann passed 12 yards to Terrell Reese on the sideline at the 18. Schlottmann passed short to Edwards, who stretched for the first down but fell a yard and a half shy.

Green's fourth-down dive up the middle was stopped well short of the first down. Aledo senior lineman Michael Williams was the last to emerge from the bottom of the pile of defenders, helping to give Aledo (15-1) the school's second state title.

Brenham's Green finished with 118 rushing yards. Edwards caught six passes for 141 yards for the Cubs, who finished 13-3.

"We're never going to quit," West said. "I think if you talk to them after the game was I over, I think they would say 'Aw, they don't give up' and we don't. We absolutely don't give up, and that's why we've been so successful."

After allowing Aledo touchdowns in the first three Bearcats' drives, Brenham concluded the first half with a pair of stops and a fourth-down pass which fell incomplete on the opening possession of the second half.

"We didn't change anything," Walker said. "In the first half, we made a couple of mistakes to the sets they were lined up in. Our main goal was to tackle the running back and in the second half we did that."

Gray raced for 125 yards and three touchdowns in the opening half, when the Bearcats took a 14-0 lead. His first score came on a 21-yard run, two plays after Brady Lambert recovered Green's fumble. At the line of scrimmage, Gray darted right to the sideline and eased in for a 21-yard score.

Gray was the entire possession on a three-play, 51-yard march, which started with a carry from the Bearcats' version of the Wildcat formation. He followed good blocking for a clear path to the end zone with 6:12 left in the first quarter.

Brenham wasted no time mounting a comeback. Green found room up the middle on a 46-yard run, after he cut to the right and got a clearing block from Reese. It would have been a highlight play for Reese but he had a better one coming. Cubs' quarterback Ty Schlottmann zipped a high pass into double coverage. Reese reached up and snagged the ball for a 30-yard touchdown between Aledo's Rob Blowers and Rylan Riney.

That finished a three-play drive, but the Cubs ran off 10 more plays and tied it up before the Bearcats got the ball back. Tanner Schmidt pushed an onside kick just past the Aledo front line and junior Travis Pearce recovered at the Bearcats' 46.

Green had to bull forward on a fourth-and-one to keep the Cubs going, setting up a scoring pass from Schlottmann to Emon Smith. The junior quarterback held the ball for a long time until spotting his 5-foot-8, 138-pound classmate in the back of the end zone with 43 seconds left in the first quarter.

"We knew they were going to come back," Buchanan said. "We knew we weren't going to walk out here and beat them 35-0."

Gray's most impressive run of the opening half produced his third touchdown. He ripped through three potential tacklers on a 36-yard run.

Brenham had a chance to score just before the half when the Cubs stopped a fake punt by Aledo. Schlottmann hit Reese for a 12-yard gain to the Aledo 40, and a pass to the end zone hit the hands of Tre'munde Moore, but fell incomplete against Riney's coverage.