On Friday, October 7, 2016, the Friendswood Mustangs traveled to League City to take on the Clear Brook Wolverines. Clear Brook came into the game off a win against the former powerhouse of Clear Creek while Friendswood defeated their last opponent by 76 points. Several years ago, this was a cross town rivalry that many took seriously. Clear Brook and Friendswood are both in the City of Friendswood, however they are in different counties and different school districts (I know, it's confusing). After not playing each other for years before finding themselves in the same district, the rivalry has changed in tone to a more friendly rivalry. Many of these students played sports on the same teams when they were younger and remain friends. It's all business during the 48 minutes that the clock is running, then its handshakes, smiles and photo ops.
To start the game, Friendswood won the toss and elected to receive the opening kick. Clear Brooks' improvement over last year was immediately evident. On their first set of downs, Friendwood found themselves in a 4th & 6 situation at the Clear Brook 35 yard line. Friendswood went for it and was rewarded with a completed pass and a 1st down. After driving to the 7 yard line, Friendswood had to settle for a field goal. The kick was tipped, but still made it through the uprights. For anyone who didn't realize that the kick was tipped and was questioning Williamson's leg, the kick off after the field goal was caught near the 3 yard line, In fact, almost every kick off of the night by Williamson was caught inside the 5. Now it's the defenses turn to go to work.
During Clear Brook's first set of downs, Roenne had his first big play and he continued to be a factor on both sides of the ball. Yurachek, Whitaker, and Stanford also had big plays before Clear Brook was forced to punt from their own 16 yard line.
With this possession, Friendswood tried a couple of new things that should have worked well, but not everyone was on the same page. I would like to have seen at least one of those plays again. This time Page found the end zone with his feet and with 6:01 left in the first quarter, the score was Friendswood 10 - Clear Brook 0. But that goose egg wouldn't last.
Clear Brook proved that they have some kids who can run. Thankfully for Friendswood, Nickerson is fast, too. Clear Brook had multiple opportunities to put points on the board here, and even made it into the end zone, but their own mistakes hurt them. Holding and a false start put Clear Brook in a 2nd & 22 situation at the Friendswood 25 yard line when a pass was intercepted by Owens just inside the goal line. He made it out to the 2 before being brought down. That is the 2nd week in a row for Owens to intercept a pass (Hopefully he can keep the streak alive next week).
The rest of the first half didn't look as good for Friendswood and by the time the 2nd quarter was over Friendswood had another field goal while giving up a touch down. But the second half was a different ball game.
It took just under two minutes for Page to connect with Roenne on a beautiful pass up the middle. Roenne was wide open and made it to the end zone for his first TD of the season. Four minutes later, Page found himself in the end zone again. The game continued on this pace until the 2nd string players got their turn. Just for the record, some of the 2nd string players would be starters in another school. But in a school where the talent pool for their position is so rich, they find themselves playing backup.
While still not perfect, yet, Friendswood did plenty of things right in this game. The fakes are getting much more believable. Page's arm is continuing to improve, meaning that an opposing defense has to cover more people and has to realize that the receivers are not only there to provide a distraction for the run. The defense's swarming technique is very effective in stopping certain styles of offense. Blackburn and Halata both did a good job running the ball and Ford had some nice heads up plays.
The box score for this game was
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q TOTAL
Friendswood Mustangs 10 3 21 7 41
Clear Brook Wolverines 0 7 0 0 7
Plenty of Mustangs worked hard this week and deserve a pat on the back. This week's atta-boys go to: Blackburn, Swaney, Williamson, Page, Whitaker, Roenne, Yurachek, Stanford, Bell, Nickerson, Owens, Roher, Hermes, Dobard, Ford, Follis, Halata, Peterson, Boddie, Lynch, Hall, Romine, Klump, Slaughter, Van Wieren, Virts and Karam.
A piece of advice to all the Mustangs - take a look at the name on the back of your jersey. That is the player you should be. Don't try to be someone else. Yes, practice things that someone else does better than you, but don't abandon your strengths to try play more like so and so. Know your strengths, improve on your weaknesses and be you.
Next week, Friendswood (4-1, 2-1) will travel back to the same stadium for a Saturday afternoon game against Clear Creek (3-3, 0-3). All of the players and fans are hoping that this game has better weather than the Saturday afternoon games we played there last year. While we didn't have to suffer through any hard rain or lightning delays, in was melting hot. Kick off will be at 1pm in the CCISD Veteran's Stadium. Be there or be square.
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