Local football roundup

Roosevelt soars in 25-2 victory

The Roosevelt Eagles took to the field Friday (Aug. 28) looking forward to improving on their rough 2019 season.

They came out in force, defeating River Road 25-2 in their first game of the season.

Head Coach Matt Landers could not be more pleased about the victory.

“Our players gave tremendous effort at the game Friday night. I was very proud the way they played and the effort they gave on both sides of the ball,” he said. “Our offense at times was clicking and looking good. We need to clean some things up, but that is typically after week one.

“Our defense was excellent. Coach Burk, our defensive coordinator, got the kids ready to play on the defensive side of the ball and it showed.”

Quarterback Jacob Torrez went 2 for 2 passing, earning 64 yards and scoring two touchdowns. He also rushed eight times for 101 yards.

Top rushers were Torrez Alex Trevino (12 for 108 yards), Kenyon Taylor (9 for 56 yards, one touchdown) and Jonathan Rivero (3 for 19 yards).

Taylor had one reception for 39 yards and JJ Diaz had the other catch for 25 yards, scoring a touchdown.

The team overall rushed 31 times for 254 yards, averaging 8.2 yards a carry.

Now the team will face the New Home Leopards Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. at home.

Landers is looking forward to seeing the team compete again, and is thankful the team gets to pay at all. “With so much uncertainty lately, it’s good to know we have Friday Night Football still going on,” he said.

“New Home is a great team and is well coached by Coach (Jon) Ward and his staff. I know they will be ready for us. We just need to work on cleaning up our penalties and turnovers and keep playing great defense.”

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Wilson loses close game to Rule

The Wilson Mustangs fought a tough game against Rule Friday evening.

In the end, the team came up painfully short losing 41-42.

Coach Michael Garza said in spite of the loss, he was proud of how the team played.

“The game ended in a thriller! It was definitely great to be back out coaching and have a group of young men who are willing to fight every snap of our game to the very end,” he said. “We will continue to build off the small victories in our game and move forward.”

Part of this could be attributed to the players’ hard work. “Our standouts include our two quarterbacks, Stetson Reimer and Dom Varela, and our senior leader, Gabe Hernandez. They were able to keep composure and lead our young group into a nail biting thriller,” added Garza.

Varela had 106 rushing yards, 139 passing yards, completing six of 10 attempts, 22 rushing attempts, two rushing touchdowns, one passing touchdown.

Reimer completed four of 10 passing attempts, carried 93 passing yards. He had 12 receiving yards, two passing touchdowns.

Hernandez had 10 rushing attempts for 51 yards and 116 receiving yards with one receiving touchdown.

Now, the team will face the Whiteface Antelopes this week Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Garza said he was using this week to help the team push through that one point and win.

“We are looking to having a better practice this week and taking our previous loss with a grain of salt,” he said. “We will continue to work each week with having our two hard practices Monday and Tuesday and moving forward with the same intensity each day.”

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Southland loses to Cotton Center

The Southland Eagles started their season off rough, losing a close match to Cotton Center 44-49 Thursday evening (Aug. 27).

Head Coach Dusty Graham said the team had some good things but “ultimately did not play well enough to win.”

“There were some factors out of our control, but the factors we could control we didn’t do well enough on. It was good for our kids to play a full game, especially all our freshmen. It was their first time to get the feel of a full Varsity game,” he said.

That said, there were some standouts in the match against the Elks.

“Our standout on offense was Benjamin Flores. He had 193 yards rushing and two touchdowns and also added 87 yards passing with a TD. On defense, it was CorDale Benham. CorDale had 13 tackles and a sack,” he said.

Now, the team tries to even up their season against the Anton Bulldogs, whom the Eagles will play Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Anton.

Grantham said the team is looking forward to this week’s game.

“We’re looking forward to getting a chance to play better. After the game I think we all had a bad taste in our mouth because we knew we could play better, so we’re excited to get back out on the field and show it,” he said.