This Week in HS Sports - September 8, 2009

Looking back at Week 1

Westfield’s head coach Corby Meekins talked before Friday’s game about the disappointment of the 2008 season, a season that saw Westfield make it to the first round of the playoffs. That’s the standard that Meekins has set at Westfield since he arrived there in 2004. A first-round playoff defeat is a disappointing season.

And why not? His teams are used to playing till the end of November and even into December. And, if Friday’s game against Cypress Falls is any indication, 2009 should be back up to Meekins’ expectations.

Going into the game, Westfield only had returning starter on offense. But that one starter was a good one—QB Jacoby Walker, who threw for over 2,000 yards last year. Meekins said that Walker’s presence on the field would be invaluable thanks to his varsity experience that made him like an on-the-field coach. In their opener, Walker was efficient but didn’t have to be spectacular because JaMarcus Morning and Preston Dotson rolled up over 300 rushing yards on the way to a 40-21 victory over the Golden Eagles.

Cy Falls was hampered in part by a flu bug that kept five starters out of the game and affected several other players. But Jacob Poole, who had a monster game a week earlier, was also hampered by Westfield’s team speed on defense.

Cy Falls head coach David Raffield had talked about his team’s problem with tackling in their opener against Bryan. Those problems did not go away against Westfield and likely will be key topics of discussion at Eagle practices this week.

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Nimitz and Clear Brook got together on Saturday for a back-and-forth shootout. Nimitz won, 49-48, but the impressive numbers were the total yards of offense put up by both schools. Nimitz posted 568 yards and Clear Brook amassed 504 yards and 33 first downs. Most of that yardage was reeled off on the ground (Nimitz: 418; Clear Brook: 394).

In a 42-42 tie, Brook QB Matt Heidt scored on a 4-yard run with 3:10 to go, but the Wolverines missed the PAT. When Marion Grice broke off a 54-yard run for a TD with 1:37 left in the game, Pablo Escobar’s PAT conversion spelled the difference in the game.

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Nimitz and Clear Brook put up a combined 41 points in their first quarter. Cypress Ridge and Klein started out on an even more wide open pace than that. In their weather-delayed Saturday night contest, the Rams and Bearkats put up 45 combined points. It appeared that 100+ was easily within reach. But things settled down and the two team actually posted another 22 points over the final three quarters, as Klein picked up a 37-30 victory.

Other interesting games from Week 1—

Katy, who ended North Shore’s 78-game win streak a week earlier and kept their No. 1 state ranking, were defeated by The Woodlands, 31-27. Junior RB Daniel Lasco scored four TDs and rushed for 258 yards on 17 carries.

Elkins sophomore QB Jake Burkhalter threw for 294 yards and six touchdowns in his first game as a starter as Elkins survived a late rally by Lamar Consolidated and won a 40-34 contest in overtime. WR Jordan Jolly caught 13 passes for 236 yards and four scores.

Klein Collins turned a short second quarter pass into a 62-yard TD reception/run by Jacob Bennett and a bad snap on a Cy-Fair punt into a fourth quarter field goal to come away with a 10-0 win over the Bobcats. Klein Collins is now 2-0 for the season. This interesting side note: under Drew Svoboda, who took over the program last year for the late Mike Konicki, Collins has not allowed an opponent more than 20 points in a game (Klein Forest scored exactly 20 points against the Tigers in the final game of 2008).

Pearland took a while to do it, but they rebounded from their heartbreaking 9-7 loss to Kingwood last week at Reliant. Trailing 21-10 with just over 8 minutes to go in their game against Kempner, the Oilers came from behind by scoring 12 unanswered points. The final six came on a 24-yd TD pass from Myles Kanipes to Charles Ortiz with 49 seconds left on the clock at Mercer Stadium.

Friendswood faced a lot of unanswered questions about their 2009 team and a state-ranked opponent in the Dayton Broncos, but responded well enough to pull out a 36-33 victory in Dayton. New QB Pete Maetzold completed 15 of 25 passes for 263 yards and 3 TDs, but also threw 3 interceptions. Andrew Cole carried 21 times for 78 yards. Dayton got TD runs of 4 yards and 49 yards from Jakarai Delasbour and 248 total yards from QB Payton Ploch, but it wasn't enough as Friendswood hung on to win.

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