Welcome to Friday Night Lights - Friendswood, TX edition!!
One Friday, August 26, 2016, the Friendswood High School Mustangs hosted the Texas City Stingarees to open the 2016 season. The night started off with rain, thunder and lightening, but that wasn't enough to stop the huge traditions that are Texas High School Football.
To start off the game, Friendswood's football team ran out during the school song. Not fight song, school song. Is this a new tradition that someone forgot to tell the band and Wranglerettes about?
The game itself started with Texas City receiving the kick off. It looked like the ball was a greased pig (well, it was raining) and was finally picked up by Whitaker and run into the end zone. Turns out, the kicking team can't score on the opening kick off, so the Mustangs had to go back to around the 10 yard line. It took 1 snap for Page to find the end zone and Friendswood was on the board with only seconds having ticked off on the clock.
Friendswood kicked off to Texas City and a night full of penalties began. By my count, Texas City ended up with twelve penalties during the game, most of them being offsides. While it seemed like all the penalties were against Texas City, Friendswood racked up at least five, some of those being offsetting penalties when Texas City also had an infraction.
This drive in particular ended when the ball slipped out of the Stingaree's hands and was picked up in the end zone by Stanford. Texas City did get close enough to the end zone to make a 4th and goal attempt on the next drive, but a penalty led them to try for a field goal instead. The kick was tipped (wish I had seen by whom) and Friendswood took over on downs.
For the most part, this is how the night went, except that once it stopped raining, there weren't as many loose balls. For the most part, our offense looked good (not counting the slips due to wet turf). Page showed everyone what he has been talking about when he said he worked on his passing game during the off season. His passing game is much improved and his receivers are more reliable. Despite those improvements and the final score, the offense either needs some work or needs some new plays. Texas City often knew what to expect and how to stop it. That could be due to the fact that this was the 17th annual game between the two teams. Both teams know each other well, both on and off the field.
During the 4th quarter, we got to see some of the younger talent for the Mustangs. Karam came in at quarterback, and Alvarez, Pena, & Garza got to join the party.
On the opposite side of the ball, there were some returning faces as well as some new ones. The defense worked hard all night, but wasn't as effective as the scoreboard would indicate. In pregame interviews, the coaches indicated that they might be shuffling people around looking for the best arrangement. Looks like they are still looking for that. Texas City's O-line was much more effective at creating holes than Friendswood's D-Line was at plugging those holes. Thankfully, the Mustang secondary was good at stopping the run. But once Texas City's offense figured out how to get through the line, they secondary had to work a lot.
Box Score
Texas City Stingarees 0 7 6 7 20
Friendswood Mustangs 14 20 13 7 54
This week's "attaboys" go to Page, Hermes, Swaney, Owens, Roher, Nickerson, Karam, Roenne, Klump, Bell, Willis, Whitaker, Gardiner, and Dobard. And if the person who tipped the attempted field goal in the first quarter isn't listed here, that player gets an "attaboy", too.
