There’s two familiar themes that have surfaced during East Chambers undefeated 2007 season — Tramain Thomas has solidified his status as one of Southeast Texas’ best players, and the Bucs can indeed play defense.

With Thomas running for three touchdowns and passing for another, and East Chamber’s defense totally shutting down Anahuac, the Bucs stayed unbeaten Friday night with a 39-0 thrashing of the Panthers.

EC is now 7-0 on the season and 3-0 in district. Anahuac falls to 1-6 and 0-4.

Now Tony Valastro’s club will have to bear down for its final three games of District 24-2A against Buna, Kirbyville, and Hardin. These three teams entered Friday night’s action with a combined 18-2 record.

But on a night that the Bucs could easily have been looking ahead toward their final three big district games, it’s obvious they were ready to play.

Holding Anahuac to just 66 yards rushing and 36 passing, the EC defense was outstanding. On the other hand, its offense was just as impressive in running up 474 yards (31 first downs) total offense including 379 yards on the ground.

After running for a pair of first half TDs, Thomas decided it was time to change things up a little bit. Coming out of the halftime intermission, Thomas went to the airways and hit Kendall Barrow with a 15-yard TD strike late in the third quarter to push EC’s lead to 26-0.

Next up in the Bucs’ offensive parade was junior Donte Raymond scoring from the 29 with 10:13 left in the game. Carlos Trevino’s kick was good and EC led 33-zip.

Thomas also scored the game’s final touchdown on a two-yard dash with 2:50 remaining.

The only reason Thomas was in the game on offense so late in the ball game was because backup Trey Lambert was injured earlier in the contest.

With the Bucs running wild for 379 yards on the ground, Raymond was the leader with 172 yards on 21 trips and a touchdown. Thomas finished the night with 101 yards rushing, three rushing TDs and one scoring pass. He also registered his eighth interception of the season.

In the first half, the EC’s defensive unit held the Panthers to only one first down and just 17 total yards.

Thomas opened the scoring with a three-yard scamper followed by Trevino’s first of three successful PATs to make it 7-0 with 5:02 left in the first.

It was Thomas again taking it in from the one at the 7:00 mark of the second. The point after was no good and East Chambers led 13-0.

Just before halftime, the Bucs put together an 80-yard scoring march culminating in 6-3 sophomore running back Jacoby Carrington racing 18 yards to paydirt with only 0:51 left.