These two teams have previously met twice, with each contest ending in favor of the home team. I don't think there was anyone in the stadium Friday night who didn't know that George Ranch won the 2015 5A Div 1 State Championships. George Ranch was known for being fast and powerful, having 3 D1 pledges on their squad. This was a high energy game and moving the student section to be next to the band added to the fire.
George Ranch won the toss and elected to receive to start the game. The Friendswood defense spent those first ten plays by George Ranch learning their offense. One of those plays being a rather impressive pass as the QB was being chased out of bounds by Stanford & someone (sorry, I didn't see your jersey number.) that was caught for a 35 yard gain. There were some really nice stops and a few misreads before Friendswood found themselves behind 7-0 less than halfway through the first quarter. In only one other game has Friendswood not scored first. Unlike in that other game, this score came before Friendswood had touched the ball.
Friendswood's offense took the field next and I have to say I was not impressed with the way they chose to play that kick return. Apparently, the powers that be weren't impressed with the way it turned out either because they didn't try that approach again. Friendswood made some great plays on this drive and was helped along by a face mask penalty against George Ranch on a complete pass. Bell ran into the end zone about 4 minutes after George Ranch scored, bringing the score to a tie. That was the score at the end of the 1st quarter.
During the second quarter, there was a play that squeaked out five or ten more yards in a way I can try to describe, but could never do justice. Page was running up the left and was caught by the Longhorn defense. Before they could bring him down, Whitaker made it over and starts pushing Page and keeping him upright. Try to picture this, George Ranch has someone behind Page and someone on his left, Page is running backwards facing Whitaker while Whitaker runs and pushes everyone forward. They went more than 5 yards like this. It was very impressive and I'm sure my description doesn't do it justice. If he hasn't already, Whitaker should consider adding this to his highlight reel for the year. Also during the second quarter, Hermes caught an interception, after dropping one earlier in the game.
The second quarter saw both teams score once each, bringing us to another tie at halftime.
The second half of the game was not nearly as close as the first. George Ranch played hard through the 3rd quarter, but I think after the interception that was made inside the 5 yard line by Owens, the second interception for Friendswood, the Longhorns were emotionally defeated. At this point, Friendswood was up by 1 touchdown, but George Ranch seemed to check out.
The final score for the evening was
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q FINAL
George Ranch Longhorns 7 7 7 0 21
Friendwood Mustangs 7 7 14 14 42
Several players earned a pat on the back after that huge win against George Ranch. This week's atta-boys go to: Hermes, Nickerson, Follis, Boddie, Bell, Page, Whitaker, Ford, Roher, Klump, Yurachek, Roenne, Willis, Stanford, Owens, Redding, & Horman.
The Mustangs still aren't perfect, but each week they do something better than they did the previous week. As long as all those improvements show up on the field at the same time, the Mustangs could be playing for a while. However, if they look at a team, look at who that team previously played and what their style is and think, "This will be an easy win for us" - then that will be the end of the season. If you're goal is to play at AT&T Stadium on Saturday, December 17, then there are no breaks from here on out. No rest stops, no days off, no easy weeks. You have to play every down of every game like your future depends on it. Because it does.
One piece of advice I will offer, if you're going for a spectacular play that looks amazing, make sure it works. Diving tackles only look cool when you make the stop. Otherwise, you look like a little kid playing superman.
In round 2 of the playoffs, Friendswood (8-2, 5-2) will host the La Porte Bulldogs (9-2, 6-0) at Challenger Columbia Stadium in CCISD. La Porte has made the playoffs for at least the last 10 years, but hasn't played past the first round since 2012. They will be hungry and looking to return to their former glory. From what little I know about La Porte, expect to see an offense that is similar to Friendswood. The question will be, which offense executes this style better and which defense is better prepared to stop it. I, for one, am not ready to see this season come to an end. There's just one thing left to say:
No comments:
Post a Comment