gonzales cannon 2012 fall sports preview

Fall Sports

2012

The Cannon

Thursday, August 23, 2012

D

The Cannon’s Fall Sports Preview 2012 Thursday, August 23, 2012Page D2

Life’s always difficult for football’s forgotten scrubsDave’s Note: I first wrote the column

below in 1974, when I was a sophomore in high school; I’d just discovered, to my cha-grin, that 120-pound defensive tackles aren’t destined for stardom in Class 5A football in the state of Texas. Over the years, I’ve touched it up here and there, but the prem-ise of the piece remains the same to this day: a salute to all those anonymous faces who toil in obscurity, but whose competitive spir-it remains forever unquenchable. It’s some-thing of a personal tradition for me to run it at the beginning of every football season.

There are two entirely different types of

people who play football.Everyone knows about one type: call ‘em

Friday Night Heroes, Saturday Afternoon’s Collegiate Conquerors or Sunday’s Gods of Football. Each team has at least 11 of them — the guys who get to play.

But few recognize the trials, tribula-tions and travails of the other type of foot-ball player. He rarely wins respect, rarely wins the praise, rarely wins the adulation heaped on his more popular counterpart; in fact, he rarely “wins,” period.

The life of a scrub is a harrowing one, filled with danger. But the scrub is neces-sary to any football team, for without him, who would the first string practice against?

Injuries in practice have been known to destroy many a budding superstar’s career, so it is imperative to find someone for the superstar to hit who can’t hit back. The scrub is typically shorter, lighter, slower and weaker than the gifted superstar, which makes him the perfect choice for refining the latter’s superior skills.

The first task most scrubs have to face on the practice field is to hold the block-ing dummies while the first-stringers vent their frustrations.

This is where the scrub first meets the team’s Lurch-lookalike offensive tackle — that 6-foot-7, 275-pounder with 4.5 speed the college scouts are so hot on. This is also usually the first place the scrub learns to moan in a weak voice after being exhumed once the tackle has flattened him and shredded the blocking dummy.

The scrub is also responsible for training his team’s defense, by repeatedly taking the ball on a handoff from the scrub quarter-back and running directly into the maw of the team’s ravenous defenders — the ones

with nicknames like “Jaws,” “Hit Man,” “Doctor Doom” and “Terminator.” He rarely finds blockers to accompany him on these little excursions, since the linemen assigned to defend him are scrubs, too.

Training luxuries are rarely part of a scrub’s regimen.

While the first-stringers ease their aches in the whirlpool, spend hours each day with massage therapists and have a hand-ful of trainers begging for the chance to wrap their ankles, the scrub counts himself lucky to get five minutes in a cold shower, two band-aids and a couple of aspirin.

The scrub also has to be more careful with his equipment than other players. Being shorter, weaker and more gullible than a first-stringer, he is a prime target for the team’s practical joker, who is almost always one of the first-stringers. Finding out that “Ultra Thermonuclear Hot Rub” is smeared all over one’s jock strap can make for a long day at practice.

Practice and the training room are haz-ardous for the scrub, but nothing can com-pare to a real game.

Hours before the contest, the scrub has reached the plateau of motivation: his fin-gernails are chewed to nubs, his teeth are chattering and his knees are wobbly.

As the team runs onto the field for the big game, it is the scrub who will become entangled in the huge paper poster the cheerleaders hold up in the end zone (pro-vided he doesn’t hit the goalpost). It is the scrub who will anchor the “wall” of play-ers as the first-stringers secretly practice one last time that play the coach has intro-duced specifically for this game.

It is also the scrub who will turn beet-red when that plaintive little voice wafts from the stands: “Mommy, is that little skinny guy really Harvey?”

As the game begins, the scrub sets up at right end — right at the end of the bench. For most of the first half, he will scream himself hoarse along with the head coach, following in the latter’s footsteps until both become hopelessly entangled in the coach’s headphone wires.

But by late in the game, if his team is either hopelessly behind or winning by a landslide, the scrub might finally get his chance.

Trotting confidently onto the field, he’s already considering what he’ll say at the post-game press conference when they ask him about that incredible twisting, turning touchdown run.

Even as the quarterback calls a flop play in the huddle to kill the final five seconds, the scrub still envisions ev-ery possibility — especially the one in which the ball somehow miraculously pops loose and winds up in his arms and he’s forced to “do it on his own.”

But the final gun sounds on time and the scrub is, more often than not, forgotten and trampled in the ensuing melee as both benches empty, the pretty girls mob the superstars and some wag pulls the plug on the stadium lights.

Somewhere amid the mud, blood and hubbub, though, a weak smile crosses the face of the scrub as he nestles the forgotten game ball to his chest. He has found true satisfaction.

Dave Mundy

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Even coming from an era in which sports writing was considered even livelier than it is today, the tribute by Edwin Shrake in the October 25, 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated, “King Of Crash, Haul And Hit,” was pretty vivid:

“The instant the center’s hands twitched on the ball, Tom Sestak charged. His first move was to whack the center with a shoulder and forearm and knock the man sideways in an ungainly sprawl. Ernie Ladd, San Diego’s 300-pound defensive tackle, was playing right guard on the field-goal team and was fighting to keep Sestak’s accomplice, Jim Du-naway, out of the backfield. As the center fell off, Sestak slid past Ladd through the gap and threw his hands into the air. The two blows—one by Sestak to the center and one by Dun-away to Ladd—sounded like the firing of a pom-pom and gave Sestak the extra yard he needed. The ball bounded back from Sestak’s upflung arms, and the 270-pound defensive captain and tackle for the Buffalo Bills had blocked his second field goal in two games.

Watching from the stands at Buffalo’s War Memorial Sta-dium on a gray and drizzly af-ternoon, one could not help but recall what Denver Coach Mac Speedie had said: “God gave everybody a certain amount of athletic ability. To Tom Sestak, He gave too much.”

While the Central Texas region has pro-duced literally hundreds of great football players over the years, the best ever arguably was a Gonzales native little-known by mod-ern fans.

Tommy Sestak was born March 9, 1936 and, like so many of his classmates, played Apache football. He was good enough, in fact, to earn a scholarship offer from Mc-Neese State University in Louisiana, where he became a top-flight tight end. At six feet, four inches, he towered over many oppo-nents in the mid-1950s.

But like many small-college players of the time, Sestak didn’t figure to have much of a shot at pro football -- until the American Football League came along. The AFL’s Buf-falo Bills made Sestak their 17th-round draft pick in 1962. Coach Lou Saban and the Bills didn’t see the tall Texan as a tight end, howev-er. Instead, the Bills realized the 267-pound-er had the size, speed and strength to handle any offensive lineman of the day and turned Sestak into a defensive tackle.

He became one of the best ever.Sestak earned a starting job his rookie

season and became part of a legendary Bills defense, earning three unanimous selec-tions to the All-AFL team in 1963, 1964 and 1965. The Bills made the playoffs four consecutive years and won back-to-back

league championships in ‘64 and ‘65. Dur-ing those two seasons, Sestak and his defen-sive mates held opposing rushers without a touchdown for 17 consecutive games -- a pro football record which still stands.

His teammates referred to his play as “crazy as hell,” and he became one of only six defensive linemen in pro football to earn three or more all-league selections -- in the company of names like Gino Marchetti, Deacon Jones, Bob Lilly, Merlin Olsen and Willy Davis. The other five, all of whom at

one point played in the NFL, have all been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame; Sestak, whose career was ended by knee in-juries in 1967, has been ignored by Hall of Fame voters.

Following the league merger, Sestak was named to the all-time All-AFL Team in 1970, and in 2009 was honored as a mem-ber of the Bills 50th Anniversary Team.

Tommy Sestak died at his home in Buf-falo, N.Y. of a heart attack on April 3, 1987.

Gonzales’ greatest football export: Tommy Sestak

Sestak and Bobby Shaw

Listed among AFL’s greatest, he’s been ignored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame

2011 was a banner year for the Gon-zales Apache football team.

The Apaches rolled to their first per-fect regular season in nearly 50 years and scalped all of their district foes, beating them by a combined score of 205-21.

Gonzales’ run was halted by even-tual state champ Wimberley in the area round of the playoffs, but their greatness did not go unnoticed. They dominated the All-District list with a dozen players named including co-Most Valuable Players Landon Lock and Jon Anthony Casares, Defensive MVP Zack Lopez and Newcomer of the Year Jordan Johnson.

Casares, Lopez, Lock and Cody Ju-rek were also named to the Class 3A All-State team, and the latter duo earned scholarships to play at Eastern New Mexico University.

The Apaches have 16 lettermen re-turning from last year including All-State players in the senior Lopez, and juniors J.T. Miller and Zach Perez-Clack. Despite retaining six offensive and five defensive starters, head coach Ricky Lock said his focus was on filling those open positions.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of questions to be answered about who’s going to play where,” he said. “We lost some players that were very good, but we’ve still got some that are pretty good. They just need the oppor-tunity to play.”

The most glaring holes are on the defense, where the Tribe lost four line-backers and two cornerbacks. Miller has been moved from defensive end to inside backer, where he will serve

as the “quarterback” of the defense by calling plays and formations.

The candidate pool to join Miller on that linebacking corps consists of DJ Gonzales, Chris Garcia, Morgan Mar-tinez, Francisco Diaz, Eduardo Angel, Gareth Fowler and Damien Airhart.

“We’ve got some good depth at that position, but they haven’t had a lot of game reps,” Lock said. “I’m glad we have five non-district games for them to get ready.”

The defensive line is more settled with Clack and Johnson manning the tackle positions. They will be backed up by Tyler Filla, Levi Snider, and Tay-lor Walker.

Lock is excited about his defensive ends, a group that includes Airhart, Ray Flores and Cameron Smith.

“Ray has looked real good,” he said. “He played about half of the time last year. Cam has looked amazing, he’s been phenomenal to this point. He’s real aggressive and has a good motor, so does Airhart.”

The secondary is going to be littered with inexperienced players, but it will likely be the strength of the defense be-cause of Lopez.

“He’s a big time playmaker,” Lock said. “If there’s a harder hitting free safety in Class 3A in the state of Texas, then I want to see him because Lopez really knows how to bring the hat.”

Lock said Martinez and Darrance James will back up Lopez at safety. James is also in the mix at cornerback with a group that includes Cecil John-son, Coltin Russell and Matt Hillman.

“They’ve looked really good at cor-ner up to this point,” he said. “We feel like we’ve really got something good there.”

The top backups in the defensive

backfield will be Darnell Arnic and Eduardo Almaguer.

“Sometimes it’s unfortunate when you’re sitting behind a really good player,” said Lock. “They’re good foot-ball players. They just need the oppor-tunity and they’re fixing to get it.”

The Apache defense was one of the most dominant units in the state last year. They absolutely stiffled offenses during district play, where they al-lowed just 166 yards per game and threw four shutouts. They only gave up 40 points in their four non-dis-trict games including a 35-0 win over Luling, their fifth shutout overall.

Last year’s defensive coordinator

Lanny Wilson has moved on to head the program at 5A Harlingen South. He was replaced by Shannon Fink, who is tasked with upholding the de-fense’s standard of excellent play.

“He’s got a lot of experience,” said Lock. “This isn’t his first rodeo, he’s done this for years. He understands football and how to get kids to play hard for him. We’ve hired some really good people here. I’ve also been im-pressed with Cassius Starks as our new secondary coach.”

“Our defense is not going to change a whole lot. We’ll be running the same concepts. My only concern is who’s go-

The Cannon’s 2012 Fall Sports PreviewThursday, August 23, 2012 Page D3

Anthony Casares

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School Year

Gonzales: talent’s there for another runGonzales ApachesShoring up defensive losses

will be key for Apaches in ‘12By CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]

APACHES, Page D4

August Bordovsky Brian Dolezal

Cameron Smith Cecil Johnson Chris Garcia

Coltin Russell Damien Airhart Darnell Arnic

Darrance James Darron Hernandez D.J. Gonzales

ing to make the tackles now because we lost one guy who made 150 tackles and another guy who made 100.”

Gonzales had a high-flying offense last season, highlighted by the prolific play of Cecil Johnson at tailback. He ran for over 1,600 yards and 14 touchdowns, and is the top returning rusher in the district.

He will be joined in the backfield by Lopez, which should give the Apaches a potent 1-2 punch.

“People forget Lopez is a pretty good running back,” Lock said. “He just plays so well on defense that it overshadows what he does on offense.”

The offensive line is where the Apaches will get their stability from because Perez-Clack, Airhart and Miller have been start-ers there since they were freshmen. They will be joined this year by Jordan Johnson at right tackle and Tyler Filla on the left side.

“I do believe that this year’s offensive line has a chance to be the best one this school has had in a very long time,” Lock said. “They are big and they are physical.”

The offensive line backups include Bri-an Dolezal, Jacob Castillo and Joe Ryan Carrizales.

“We’ve got some guys who are really showing some good things up front,” said Lock. “I think we’re going to be very good up front if we can stay healthy.”

Coming back to serve as the field gen-eral is quarterback Matt Hillman, who started the first four games last year be-fore he suffered a separated shoulder at practice.

“The starting position is Hillman’s job,” Lock said. “He knows the offense and he’s worked hard in the weight room. He’s gained 10 to 15 pounds, so he’s stronger now.”

“He had done a great job before the in-jury. We were 4-0 and he had thrown for a lot of yardage. He has that ability to throw the football and now he can run it, we just have to keep him healthy.”

Backing up Hillman will be Martinez and James.

“All three have done a good job at quar-terback at this point,” said Lock. “James will do our version of some of the Wildcat stuff.”

When the Apaches take to the air, the likely targets will be Coltin Russell and James.

“James has come in and played some Z and he’s looked really good,” Lock said about the versatile sophomore. “He may be the biggest surprise in the whole dis-trict. He’s grown up a lot in one year.”

The biggest question mark on offense is at the fullback position, where there’s a close competition going on between Fowler, Diaz and Darron Hernandez.

“They’re all battling for that spot,” said Lock. “I took for granted how good our fullback was last year in carving people up and blocking out of the backfield. Right now there’s a sense of urgency among the coaching staff to find a fullback.”

Despite the Apaches impressive season last year and the fact that Lock has won 19 of 22 games in his last two campaigns, Gonzales is not high on the list of state contenders. Not only does Dave Camp-bell’s Texas Football not have them ranked in their Preseason Top 25, but Gonzales is also not mentioned on their Dark Horses list.

While he admitted being slightly irked by the oversight, Lock said he relishes the role of underdog.

“I’m not real big on ratings because they never give us much credit,” said Lock. “I think people dwell on the past too much and don’t understand what’s happening here now with these particular players.”

“I like the idea of us having our backs against the wall because it brings about more chemistry and really bonds our team together. I don’t know how good we’re going to be, but nobody had better take us lightly on Friday nights. The one thing we will do is get after you.”

When the lights do finally come on Fri-day nights, Gonzales will have tough sled-ding right off the bat.

The Apaches open with Victoria East, who return 21 lettermen from a team that made it to the area round of the Class 4A playoffs last year. They will next travel to 4A Bastrop, who feature two players al-ready committed to Texas and TCU, and then host 4A Austin Lanier and the new-ly-formed 3A College Station High.

“The problem we were having was I couldn’t find people to play us,” explained Lock. “When I came back here in 2010

everybody in the world wanted to play us. We were 1-9 the year before and we were everybody’s Homecoming game. Now it’s hard for us to find people to play.”

Gonzales will travel to play a familiar foe in Week 5 in San Antonio Sam Hous-ton. The Hurricanes kept the Apaches out of the playoffs with a 12-8 win in 2010. Gonzales got revenge last year by down-ing Sam Houston 27-0, a team that sent eight players into the collegiate ranks.

“Luckily Sam Houston called us look-ing for a game,” said Lock. “I didn’t want to play it that week because it’s a week before we start district, but I didn’t really have a choice. The only alternative would have been driving to Stephenville or Tex-arkana or someplace way out like that, but I didn’t want to do that because of our fan base.”

The 2012 UIL Realignment removed Gonzales, Cuero and Yoakum from Dis-trict 28-3A and placed them in 26-3A with Giddings, La Grange and Smithville.

Giddings will return 11 lettermen from a bi-district finalist team and Preseason District Offensive MVP Joseph Glenn at running back, Smithville returns 26 from a playoff team that boasts the win-ningest senior class in school history and La Grange is led by a blue chip prospect in quarterback Logan Vinklarek. Cuero is rebuilding after an uncharacteristically down year, but they have 17 lettermen back including a potent weapon in run-ning back D’Anthony Hopkins. Yoakum returns 17 starters including most of their key skill players and nine on de-fense.

“In this district, you have to be ready every Friday night because everybody is good,” said Lock. “It’s very competitive and very tough.”

“It’s going to a dog fight every week. The margin for error is very slim in this district. If you make a mistake early and get behind the eight ball, then you might not survive. Every week will be crucial.”


APACHES: Gonzales looksprimed for solid campaign

Continued from page D3

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Dozens of runners came out to participate in the preseason workouts held by Gonzales first year cross country head coach Cully Doyle. (Photo by Mark Lube)

Gonzales cross country coach Cully Doyle will have to take fictional movie character Ray Kinsella’s revelation in re-verse – He will have to get them to come along and then he can build it.

The first-year head coach said he wants to focus on getting as many athletes as possible on the cross country team.

“I just want to build numbers at first,” he said. “I want to build big numbers at the high school and then the junior high.”

Attendance at Doyle’s pre-season work-outs have been encouraging, with as many as 40 kids or so preparing for the team this season.

“I am excited by the athletes that have been coming out so far,” he said. “They are coming along. If the numbers stay up by the time school is in swing will be suc-cessful.”

Doyle said he plans on doing some ‘in-district recruiting’ to help bolster his numbers.

“Once school starts, I am going to push the junior high to get numbers up,” Doyle said. “If I see kids I think could do well in cross country, I will encourage them to come out because they will see benefits if they do it.”

“I will not create a situation where an athlete is also competing in a concurrent sport and would have a schedule conflict. I will ask them to come out three times a week, never on game day. I want the ath-

letes to do every sport they want to do, but I still believe cross country helps with every sport, especially conditioning.”

Team chemistry will be important to the success of the program.

“If we can get numbers of runners out here, then we can start to create a family where everybody has to trust each other and has to enjoy being around each oth-er,” he said. “It has to be a positive atmo-sphere. No negativity on my team. Kids want to come out and have fun. When it stops being fun, they do not show up any longer.”

Doyle said building the family atmo-

sphere is what will keep the athletes on the team. He would like to get both var-sity teams into the regional meet this year.

“I would like to take a boys team and a girls team to regionals,” he said. “And my next goal would be the ultimate one — the state meet.”

Doyle said if getting to state does not happen to this year’s team, he would like to see a team finish in the top three at dis-trict.

“I feel we can be a top-three team in our district, if we keep the numbers up,” he said. “Right now, we have good num-bers but there are other kids walking the halls of GHS and GJH who are not run-ning that need to be.”

“It is important to me that they can come out to run, help the team. It would be nice if we could make the regional meet.”

Gonzales opens the season at home with the Gonzales Relay at Independence

Park. The harriers will then run in the Lockhart, Moulton and UTSA Invitation-als; Feast Flight Score Meet, Hondo Invi-tational and then get the chance to run the state course at Old Settler’s Park in the Round Rock McNeil meet. They will close out the season with the Poth Invitational, the District 26-3A meet in Giddings, and hopefully the Region IV meet in San An-tonio and the UIL State Meet.

Doyle said the main reason to enter the Round Rock meet is to let the athletes compete on the state course.

“I think it is important to run there be-cause it is our ultimate goal,” he said. “The bad thing it is the first weekend of Octo-ber which has Oktoberfest and the Come & Take It Festival.”

“I probably will not make it a manda-tory meet for the kids to run in. However, I still feel it is important to drive up there and run on that course and then drive back to still be part of the festivities.”

Focus for first-year coach is to build, retain numbersApache Cross Country: back on track

Coach Cully Doyle

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Right down the middle:spot-on Cannon Coverage


For once, Gonzales volleyball coach Kim Payne does not have to worry about how much experience she has on the team because they are loaded with it.

Seniors Lindsey Ak-ers, Morgan Simper, Shayla Simper, Carly Bozka, Allison Raley and Kiley Braune have been starters or play-ers on the varsity team since their freshman year, which was Payne’s first year as head coach.

These players will be complimented by ju-niors Danyelle Glass and Kendall Fouergat, and some players from the junior varsity that will likely see time on varsity at some point.

Payne has set an ear-ly-season goal to go with the ones the Lady Apaches are always striving for — winning

district and making a deep playoff run.

“I am hoping to start out the year by bring home some hardware from tournaments that we have gotten stomped in,” she said. “One of my biggest goals is to be competitive in those tournaments. Then I want to take one game at a time, build for dis-trict and get through district.”

Braune will fill the setter spot left by grad-uate Jessica Cantu.

“Kiley knows how to set and we have worked with her during the offseason,” Payne said. “My assistant coaches (Jenna Philips and Sar-ah Moreno) have been working with her and I feel she will be ready to go for the season.”

Look for Akers, Shay-la and Morgan Simper, Raley, Fougerat and Glass to return to their

spots from last year and Bozka to play as libero/defensive specialist, as she has for the previous three seasons.

“This is probably one of the strongest hitting teams I have ever had in Gonzales,” Payne noted. “They have been play-ing all summer in the summer league and it has paid off.”

She said Gonzales looks strong across the board, although the team always needs reps in passing.

“I think any team’s weakness is passing,” Payne said. “During two-a-days, we will work on passing and on defense. I know what we are coming upon in district and we will have to be up on the de-fensive end and be able to dig balls.”

Payne will be happy that all of her seniors have stuck around with the program through-out the last couple of years.

“These are my ba-bies,” she said. “And I get chills when I talk about each one of them. Every one of them brings so much to the table, not just on the court but their person-alities, character and enthusiasm blows me away.”

“They know what is at stake and we have talked about making our motto ‘Unfinished Business’ like the Bay-lor University motto.”

The Lady Apaches qualified for the play-offs through a play-in game for third place with Cuero and Pleas-anton, and fell in the bi-district round to Devine.

“We made it to the playoffs but we did not finish our business,” Payne said. “The girls know what they want to do. They are excited and I have not had a

group of girls who are calling and begging to get into the gym to play. They have been doing that all summer.”

Another thing Payne

does not have to be too concerned about is the Lady Apaches’ team chemistry.

“They get along the best out of any group I have had,” she said. “I think they are honed in on what they want to do this season and they know it is their last year.”

All of the senior group will be responsible for providing leadership to the team.

“I told them that ev-ery one of them has got a leadership role on their shoulders,” she said. “If we want to go

somewhere, the leader-ship has got to go across the board and not just on one person.”

Payne also lauded the team for improved on-

the-court communica-tion.

“I have witnessed them talking better on the court during sum-mer league and I believe it is only going to get stronger.”

Payne said one big challenge for Gonzales to deal with is finishing out matches.

“When you put some-one away in the first game, keep going and finish them out in the second and third games. Do not play around with them,” she said. “That is a big thing I have to in-still in them at the be-ginning of the season.”

“You have to put your opponents away and not let them stick around. That is a challenge for this group because they will win the first game and think they have the match won and they tend to relax. The inten-sity has to stay high the

whole time.”Payne said during

summer league, the Lady Apaches, for the most part, were at high level of intensity and fo-

cus. And talking things over as a whole team and not separate parts of the team.

Gonzales starts thing off with the Columbus Tournament, will play in the Goliad Tourna-ment for the first time and will face challeng-es in the Schulenburg Tournament.

“Columbus will be tough because we have Victoria West in our pool. We have always ended up in the bot-tom at the Schulenburg Tournament and the girls have said they are tired of it,” Payne said. “I have been told that the Goliad Tournament is a good one.”

Gonzales will face El Campo, Lytle, George-town East View and Po-teet, mostly on the road. Gonzales will once again face Cuero and Yoakum in district, and exchange La Vernia, Pleasanton, Poteet and San Antonio Sam Houston for Smith-ville, Giddings and La Grange.

Payne said she expects good play from all of the district teams.

“I am not taking any-one in district lightly,” she said. “It will be a dogfight to the end. Cu-ero is coming off a great season from last year. Those girls know what it takes to win.”

Helping Payne this year will be Gonzales 2007 graduate Phil-lips and Moreno, who played collegiate volley-ball at St. Mary’s Uni-versity in San Antonio from 2004 until 2008.

District title definitely in reachof loaded Lady Apache squad

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Nixon-Smiley MustangsMustangs ready to take a step up

After several years of dwelling in the bot-tom of their district standings, Nixon-Smiley took a major step forward last year.

Going into their last regular season game needed a win to se-cure its first playoff berth since 2005, the Mustangs suffered a devastating 50-29 loss to Stockdale that left them on the outside looking in.

“Overall there were more positives last season than there were negatives,” said head coach Carlton McKinney. “We had an opportunity to make the playoffs and every game mattered down the stretch. In-stead of resting on our laurels,we have to learn to take the next step.”

“This year with the guys we have com-ing back, it’s a great opportunity for us to turn the corner. Our goal is to go out every game and improve ev-ery time out.”

Nixon-Smiley has a dearth of experience returning from last

year’s pivotal team, including seven start-ers on both sides of the ball.

“This year more than any other since I’ve been here, we have some flexibility in the backfield,” said McKinney.

The Mustangs will rely on heavy contri-butions from the trio of HB Miguel Her-nandez, FB Jared Van

Auken and OL Logan McMain. All three players earned Hon-orable Mention to the 2011 All-Cannon Football Team.

“Miguel is one of the most complete play-ers that we have,” said McKinney. “We expect great things from him. Jared is a two-year varsity player who is coming into his own. He will start at both fullback and middle linebacker. Logan is a two-year starter who is our main guy on the offensive line.”

In addition to those three stalwarts, Nix-

on-Smiley will also field several talented varsity newcomers from last year’s 6-3 ju-nior varsity team.

“Nick Pena is re-ally pushing Rudy Acevedo for the starting quarterback job,” McKinney said. “Tristan Newman will be playing some half-back for us as a soph-omore and he’s one of the quickest kids we

have in the entire pro-gram.”

“Victor Evans is an-other kid we expect some good things from. He’s been play-ing basketball for me and this is the first year he’s going to play football. At 6-2, 220 pounds, he’s a good addition to the pro-gram at tight end.”

With the talent level on an upswing this year, McKinney said Nixon-Smiley football is in a place where it hasn’t been in recent memory.

“We are in a posi-tion that we weren’t

in last year,” he said. “We’re going to be competitive every week because we have kids who be compet-ing for jobs every day in practice.”

The biennial UIL realignment left Nix-on-Smiley in a reno-vated version of Dis-trict 15-2A Division II with familiar foes Poth, Karnes City and Stockdale.

“They will be like they always have been,” said McKin-ney of those schools. “They’re always in the hunt for a district championship and make the playoffs al-most every year.”

The district also in-cludes holdover Dil-ley and newcomers Bloomington, Cotul-la, Natalia, who each combined for one dis-trict win in 2011.

“Dilley has had a lot of turnover, but the still return some good players,” McKinney said. “Natalia, Cotulla and Bloomington all have new head coach-es, but we expect them to be competitive.”

“There’s no team in this district where you can automatically chalk up an easy win.

Poth is the favorite be-cause of what they’ve done in the past, but there are four or five teams that have a shot at the playoffs.”

In order to get his team battle-ready for district play, McK-inney said he inten-tionally scheduled a non-district game at old league mate Three Rivers on Sept. 7.

“I wanted to keep

them on the sched-ule because they play hard-nosed football,” said McKinney. “We wanted to play them because with just three non-district games, you wanted to make them as com-petitive as you could while still having a chance to win. If we fare well against their style of play, we’ll be ready for district.”

With experience from last year’s near-miss,Nixon-Smiley has the hosses for post-season

Jared Van Auken Justin Ramos Justin Wolf

Miguel Hernandez Nick Pena Phoenix Medina

Tristan Newman Tyler Alvarez Victor Evans

Edward Pena Garrett Earlywine Jacob Perez

Lane Guillory Logan McMain Marco Hernandez

Raul Tobar Rio Rodriguez Rudy Acevedo

Darren Kaluza David Miles

By CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]

“This year with the guys we have coming back, it’s a great oppor-tunity for us to turn the corner.”

— Coach Carlton McKinney

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WAELDER — A fa-miliar face will coach the Waelder volleyball team this season, but the loss of another familiar face will stay with the Lady Wildcats.

Meghan House, who was head girl’s basketball coach last year, has been placed in charge of the high school volleyball team.

She hopes the fact that some of her volleyball players had her in bas-ketball will lend itself to maintaining consistency and making progress with the team.

“Our goal is to build the program,” House said. “The girls’ program has been lacking for a

while so we would really like to establish a good varsity program.”

But do not think keep-ing consistency in the program is House’s only goal for the season.

“I want us to make the playoffs,” she said. “We have three really good teams in our district in Shiner, Flatonia and Wei-mar. I think we can com-pete with those teams.”

House’s optimism was damped this week after sophomore Courtney Orona passed away in a tragic auto accident. Team members were still dealing with the shock at press time for this edi-tion.

House has a good number of underclass-men, with two seniors and two juniors out of

a varsity roster of about seven players.

“I think it is good leadership for the team,” she said. “I have a good group of sophomores who played as freshmen last season who can build for the future.”

Waelder has four play-ers that are returning starters: seniors Hailey Rincon and Alex Benitez, and juniors Chelsa Nich-ols and Marissa Ramirez. Other players on the team is the sophomore duo of Monica Bracamontes and Kirsten Muenchow.

“It helps we have sev-eral returning starters because we do not have to start from the bot-tom,” House said. “With girls basketball, we had to start at square one. We can start at square five

with volleyball.”Early in the season,

Waelder was still work-ing on its regular lineup.

“We have got a few girls with some pretty good hands and three who could be very good hitters if they approach things correctly,” she said. “They fit together as a team and are pretty well suited for each other. We can be a very good team if we can learn to talk and communicate well.”

House said one of Waelder’s strengths is they are determined and enthusiastic .

“They are excited to

have a returning coach,” she said. “I think that is a big deal to them and they really like volleyball. It’s more girlie than basket-ball and not as intense.”

Waelder plays in the Nordheim Tournament and also plays CCS Bas-trop, Runge and Nord-heim. District play starts in early September for Waelder.

House observed that they did not have a lot of non-district matches be-cause of the early start to district.

“We could use more,” she said. “But it is good because we have to get

serious quickly. At the same time, we do not have as much time to prepare for district.”

House will retain her position as head girls basketball coach.

“I am excited to be a volleyball head coach as I was varsity girls basket-ball coach last year,” she said. “These kids have the potential to be good in both sports. Most of my volleyball team plays bas-ketball.”

The Lady ‘Cats battled through a 4-13 season in 2011 and went 0-10 in district competition.


Caraway Nixon

100 Hwy. 87 N., Nixon, TX 78140830-582-2511

Good Luck Teams!

Two years ago, the Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs were in a full-blown rebuilding mode.

Coach Jane Iams had led the team into the area round of the play-offs in the previous season, but returned a very young squad with no seniors on it. The Lady Mustangs took their share of lumps early on, but eventu-ally came together enough to manage a respectable 6-6 dis-trict record.

Now those players who were so young back then have devel-oped into veterans. Nixon-Smiley finished third in District 29-2A last season, but they fell just short of the playoffs after losing a play-in game with Luling.

“We were a little more experienced last year because we re-turned most of those kids from the year before,” said Iams. “It was still a young team overall, but we definitely didn’t have a bad season.”

The Lady Mustangs have retained that

nucleus of players, returning six letter-men. They will be led by their four return-ing senior starters Devon Tristan, Hai-ley Boatright, Abigail Scarbrough, and Kelby Henderson.

“They are all hard-working kids,” Iams said. “They have some experience now so they’re more ready now to get after it, which is exciting. They under-stand what it’s going to take for us to have a successful season.”

Other players who are expected to make major contributions this year include se-niors Treca DeLeon and Jennifer Flores, junior Alena Alvarez and sophomore Megan Guerra.

“We graduated two setters last year so we’ll have two new ones this year who are definitely going to be one of our keys to success,” said Iams. “Obviously it’s going to take a team effort, we need every-body working together

as a team. That’s going to be huge for us.”

Nixon-Smiley will compete in District 28-2A in a league that includes state champion Poth, who is returning nine let-termen. Other new district mates who made the playoffs last year were Hallettsville, Karnes City, Luling, and regional semifi-nalist Schulenburg. Stockdale rounds out the district roster.

“Playing in this dis-trict is going to be

very challenging,” said Iams. “But it will be a good opportunity for our kids to be able to play some of the better teams in the region and work on increasing our competitive edge.”

Iams is hoping the combination of her team’s senior leader-ship, experience and hard work will result in the Lady Mustangs making the fourth postseason appear-ance of her seven-year tenure.

“We have to learn

how to finish,” she said. “We started off the first round of district play well last year, but we couldn’t sustain it. We just have to work on finishing games early in the season.”

“We need to make sure we’re playing hard on every point and make sure we make the most of every oppor-tunity and not let any-thing slide by. That’s what’s going to give us an opportunity to get out of our district and into the playoffs.”

Senior-laden Lady Mustangs look for breakout

Abigail Scarborough Alena Alvarez Devon Tristan

Hailey Boatwright Jennifer Flores Kelby HendersonMeagan Stone

Megan Guerra Miranda Carrillo

Alex Benitez Chelsa Nichols Hailey Rincon

Kirsten Muenchow Marissa Ramirez Monica Bracamontes

Treca DeLeon

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WAELDER — New Waelder athletic director and cross country coach David President is going to be building the program, week by week.

“Our team goals are to improve from week to week,” he said. “We want to see short-term individual goals and team goals being accomplished every week,

whether it is taking time off the clock, improving for or building strength to com-plete races.”

The team’s seniors will be counted upon to give the team success.

“They have an excellent work ethic, they lead by example and always have postitive attitudes,” Presi-dent said. “They have been through the first and as a coach, that is who you ex-pect to carry a team.”

He cited the team is very strong in pride, work ethic and leadership ability.

Waelder will compete in several meets this year, including races in nearby Moulton and Shiner.

“Every meet on the schedule will be a true chal-lenge and give us an idea of where we stand,” President said. “The meets will pre-pare us for what we will see in district, at the regional meet and at the state meet.”

By MARK LUBE

[email protected]

President works on buildingup cross-country program

By MARK LUBE

[email protected]

Lady ‘Cats try to bounce back from tragedy

By CEDRIC [email protected]


Good Luck Nixon-Smiley and Waelder!

2012 Varsity Mustangs

2012 Junior Varsity Mustangs

2012 Varsity Lady Mustangs

2012 Varsity Lady WildcatsDedicated to the memory of

Courtney Ashlyn Orona

A double title chase in Shiner in 2012

Comanches primed for run at crown

Fall Sports 2012The Cannon


E

SHINER — After his Hous-ton Oilers had lost the AFC Championship game to the Pittsburgh Steelers for the second year in a row in 1980, Bum Phillips vowed: “One year ago, we knocked on the door. This year, we beat on the door. Next year, we’re going to kick the son-of-a-(beep) in.”

As things turned out, it didn’t happen.

Shiner Comanches head football coach Steven Cerny is the conservative sort, so you won’t hear the same kind of speech from him — although his team has, like Luv Ya Blue Oilers, gotten close in each of the last two seasons.

Instead, he’ll allow that the 2012 Comanches have the po-

tential to kick some doors in.“We’ve been pushing on the

kids that it’s our chance this year,” said Cerny, whose team reached the quarterfinals last year before seeing everything fall apart in a loss to eventual state champion Mason. “We feel like we have the opportu-nity to play a few rounds in the playoffs.”

The Comanches start the season as the top-ranked Class 1A team in the San Antonio region, and were ranked No.5 in the state by the pre-season coaches’ poll.

Playing a few rounds in the playoffs has become a habit for Shiner, which has advanced at least three rounds in each of the last two seasons despite a .500 record during the regular season. That record has been deceiving, however: most of

their non-district games have been against much larger schools, giving Shiner a ton of quality competition.

“If you come out of it healthy, it helps,” Cerny said of the bru-tal non-district slate his team has played. “Two years ago it hurt our confidence (when the Comanches finished non-district 0-6). We were playing people way above our heads.”

This year, after opening with four Class 2A teams — Vanderbilt Industrial, Hal-lettsville, Schulenburg and Randolph — the Comanches return to picking on people their own size when they wrap up pre-district play against 1A Thrall and Weimar.

“Those are two solid teams,” Cerny said. “That should give us a real good idea of how good we are. Those will be real physical games.”

The Comanches open the season blessed with a lot of experience, talent and speed

at the skill positions, but more depth in the offensive and de-fensive lines. Cerny said it’ll be a juggling act from the start.

Jacob Stafford, who made a big splash as a sophomore last year at quarterback, may actu-ally rotate at the position with the speedy Trevian Flowers and senior Brady Cejka to add some punch to the backfield.

“I feel pretty confident with any of those three at starting

quarterback,” he said. “We’d like to see what Stafford can do at running back, and Trev-ian can go out wide because of his speed.”

The Comanches also have experience with between-the-tackles veteran fullbacks Caleb Curtis and Marcus Coleman.

Tight ends Caleb Kalich and Brian Kloesel also return with experience, but Cerny said depth at that position may force the Comanches into more one-tight-end sets than they’ve run in the past.

Along with Flowers and Coleman, the wideout spot may be manned by a fresh-man, Justin Stovall, who Cerny said has shown a “lot of talent” during summer workouts.

The problem among the of-fensive skill positions, Cerny said, is depth. “We want to try and get people going one-way rather than both sides of the ball, so we can’t afford injuries

SHINER — The “back to the future” comparison is inevita-ble as Jake Wachsmuth and his St. Paul Cardinals head into the 2012 football season.

Wachsmuth is back at the school following a year’s so-jurn. The Cardinals revert to the ground-oriented offensive attack from the wide-open aerial game they relied on a year ago. Many of the key skill players who took the Cards to that championship — in par-ticular the running back tan-dem of Adam Hollenbach and Martin Kennedy — are back for their senior seasons.

But Wachsmuth shrugs off those comparisons in favor of

an observation more tried and true in football circles: those that spend all their time dwell-ing on history are doomed to never repeat it.

“It’s still a new team,” said Wachsmuth. “They’re excited. They know they have the op-portunity to be real good. I don’t think about (the 2010 championship). I approach every season the same.

“People look at what we did two years ago and think that was an easy season,” he said. “It was not. And they think this one is going to be even easier, and it is not. It’s always new.”

New or not, a lot of famil-iar names dot the Cardinals’ lineup, and they’re all more experienced and bigger than

before. Those names begin, of

course, with Hollenbach and Kennedy. As sophomores in 2010, they put up prolific numbers. Both went over 1,000 yards on the ground and might have accomplished even more had the schedule not included a number of lop-sided blowouts.

Hollenbach, in fact, enters this season with the potential to crack the state record books in the career-touchdowns cat-egory, threatening the marks set by luminaries like Ced-ric Benson, Robert Strait and Kenneth Hall.

The numbers for Hollen-bach and Kennedy suffered a bit last year as both ran the ball fewer times in an air-ori-ented attack, but Wachsmuth said he’s not about to overlook opportunities this season.

“We’ve got about five or six

skill kids that, they’ve got to get the ball,” he said. “We’ve got to utilize all that talent, that’s the challenge. We’ve got to make sure to tweak things to make sure they get the ball.”

Wachsmuth said the Car-dinals could at times utilize three-back formations behind QB Dakota Kresta, with vet-erans like Dylan Barton and Mitchell McElroy joining the two standout seniors.

Kresta is another senior that Wachsmuth will be only too happy to utilize.

“He’s an excellent quarter-back,” Wachsmuth said. “He got a lot of experience throw-ing the ball last year, but he’s also very good with the op-tion.”

McElroy will take some snaps at QB as well.

Wachsmuth is also anxious to test out a couple of new fac-es in the Cardinal lineup. Tyler

Morgan comes in as a senior transfer, at tight end and line-backer, while John Barker will see time at RB and LB. Both top the 200-pound mark.

“One great thing about our kids is that they’re versatile,” Wachsmuth said. “Dylan is probably our fastest kid, but you could see him at tight end,

Shiner Comanches

St. Paul Cardinals

Staying healthy prime concernfor experienced Shiner squad

Cardinals loaded up for runas Wachsmuth returns to helm

It’s ‘Back to the Future’ for St. Paul

By DAVE MUNDY

[email protected]

By DAVE MUNDY

[email protected]

Jake Wachsmuth

Steven Cerny

SHINER, Page E2

ST. PAUL, Page E4

The Cannon’s Fall Sports Preview 2012 Thursday, August 23, 2012Page E2

Lady Comanches start fresh

SHINER — When she was hired as the Lady Comanche volleyball coach, Megan Klim-itchek asked a favor of the coaching staff.

“I asked all of the coach-es to not tell me anything about the team or the players,” she said. “I want-ed to come in and have a fresh look at everything. I did not want to know where everyone played and where everyone was comfortable playing.”

The first time Klim-itchek found out any-thing at all about her 2012-13 team was dur-ing some of the sum-mer league games. She waited until the start of two-a-days earlier in the month to take good looks at her personnel and their talents, abili-ties and weaknesses.

Klimitchek said some of the players are play-ing positions they did not play last season.

“The girls have adapt-ed very well,” she said. “I could not have asked for a better adaptation to the level of play that

I expect from the girls. They are doing awesome in adapting to those po-sitions that I put them in.”

Klimitchek said she has not zeroed in on running a certain for-mation, but will run whatever the situation calls for.

Candidates for out-side hitter are Julianna Rankin and LaNeisha Hunt. Middle block-ers could be Amanise Coleman and Tabitha Blaschke. Meagan Chumchal and Emma-lie Berkvosky could see lots of time as defensive specialists. Right-side hitters and setters could be Lauren Oden and Kristin Schacherl.

The Lady Comanches will carry four seniors on team. Ciara Harper is recovering from in-juries, but is expected to see the court at some point. Oden, Hunt and Berkvosky are the other three senior players.

Klimitchek is more concerned with how Shiner plays than knowing a lot about the other district and non-district opponents.

“If we keep the inten-sity level up and play to our level of play, we should definitely be a contender for a playoff spot,” she said.

Klimitchek said she feels the team is blessed to have players who are all-around athletic.

“My girls are great athletes,” she said. “To have this many athletes on a team is an impor-tant aspect when you play at a high level. They are what I would describe as ‘scrappy’. They can pick up balls like no other.”

“We have several good servers and quite a few good hitters.”

Shiner hosted a tour-nament and will also play in the Schulenburg and Edna tournaments. They will also play Sa-cred Heart, Giddings, Hallettsville and East Bernard.

Klimitchek said she approached every game, regardless of the oppo-nent, in the same way.

In district, Shiner is coupled with Flatonia, formely 2A Weimar, Prairie Lea, Louise, Ga-nado and Waelder.

New Shiner coach Klimitchek brings fresh approach to program

there,” he said. “We lost some good ones from our senior class and we lost a couple just the other day, so I’m concerned about depth.”

The offensive line has some size and better depth, he said.

Cole Strauss returns to start at center, while Joey Overton and Jaace Chum-chal will rotate at left guard. Tanner Pietsch and Craig Kneifel are battling for the left tackle starting job, while Kris Patek and Max Huth contend for the starting spot at right guard. Veteran Michael Lawrence and Jonathan Albright head the list at right tackle.

The Comanches’ offset 4-3 starts with Zach Ar-nold and Austin Remers at noseguard. Chumchal and Lawrence will rotate in at defensive tackle, while Kniefel and Pi-etsch are battling for the starter’s job on the right end. The Comanches lost veteran left end Jeremiah McAfee during the sum-mer, and Curtis and ka-lich appear to be the leading candidates to fill

the vacancy.Stafford is a returning

All-District pick at mid-dle linebacker, but Cerny admits his squad is thin among ‘backers. Kloesel, Huth and Overton figure on filling out the strong and weakside spots.

In the backfield, Ce-jka has the strong safety spot locked, while fresh-man Chad Neubauer has emerged as the top candi-date at the weakside spot. Veteran Evel Jones is a lock at left cornerback, while Isador Cerny — no relation — looks like the leading candidate at RCB.

For all his concern with depth at the skill positions, coach Cerny said it’s the guys in the trenches who will determine the Coman-ches’ fate.

“I still think our season will depend on our offen-sive and defensive lines,” he said. “We put the ball on the ground against Mason (in last year’s quarterfinals), but we lost the battle on the line before we lost the ball. We’ve got a little more size and a little more depth than last year, so I’m feeling better about them.”

Amanise Coleman Ciara Harper Emmalie Berkovsky

Julianna Rankin Kristin Schacherl LaNisha Hunt

Lauren Oden Megan Chumchal Tabitha Blashke

Brian Kloesel Kris Patek Michael Lawrence

Jeremiah McAfee Joey Overton Tanner Pietsch

Max Huth Weston Roller Nathan Schneider

Cole Strauss

Jonathan Albright

Caleb Curtis Chad Neubauer Isador Cerny

Caleb Kalich Jacob Stafford Brady CejkaMarcus Coleman Evel Jones Trevion Flowers

By MARK LUBE

[email protected]

Jaace Chumchal Austin Remers Craig KneifelZach Arnold

Continued from page D1

SHINER: Comanches setsights on playoff chase

The Cannon’s 2012 Fall Sports PreviewThursday, August 23, 2012 Page E3

Shiner High School Comanches2012 Varsity Football Schedule

Date Opponent Location TimeAug. 17 Karnes City (scrimmage) Away 7:30 pmAug. 24 Luling (scrimmage) Home 7:30 pmAug. 31 Industrial Away 7:30 pm Sep. 7 Hallettsville Home 7:30 pmSep. 14 Schulenburg Home 7:30 pmSep. 21 Universal City Randolph Away 7:30 pmSep. 28 Thrall Away 7:30 pmOct. 5 Weimar (Homecoming) Home 7:30 pmOct. 12 Kenedy Away 7:30 pmOct. 19 Open Oct. 26 Three Rivers Home 7:30 pmNov. 2 Ganado Away 7:30 pmNov. 9 Yorktown (Parent’s Night) Home 7:30 pm

District games in boldHead Coach: Steve CernyAssistant Coaches: Billy Turek, Daniel Boedeker, Wendell Boner, Brandon Siegel, Ray Neal, Noe McCarthy

2012 Varsity Lady Comanches

2012 Lady Cardinals

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wide receiver or running back. We’ve got good depth.”

The offensive line, new and relatively undersized last season, has had a year of experience and work in the weight room and has the potenial to be very, very good.

Seniors Justin Siegel, Austin Horne and Lad-die Patek all have added

size and speed, and ju-nior Travis Raabe and sophomore Connor Pru-ett lead the underclass-men. Colton Spahn and Sean Wenske will also see a lot of field time.

“We’ve got some se-niors obviously who have played, and there are some good young kids coming up,” Wachsmuth said. “They definitely have a good attitude.”

The Cardinal defense is

also reverting to its 2010 formation, the 4-3. Wa-chsmuth said the Cardi-nals have not worked as much on defense yet, but it will be easier to pick up.

“The kids are all pretty familiar with what we do, so what we can do now is start expanding on that base we started,” he said.

While his team is load-ed with experience and starts the season as the odds-on favorite to reach the state title game, Wa-chsmuth said the biggest factor in St. Paul’s favor has nothing to do with football.

“The kids come here for a lot of reasons, not for the sports but for the academics and the faith,” he said. “People talk a lot about chemistry. You lose some of that with ev-ery group of seniors you graduate. People say we only lost three seniors, but you’re losing people.”


Continued from page E1

SHINER — Expecta-tions are high for the St. Paul Lady Cardi-nals entering the 2012 volleyball season.

Then again, they’re high every year.

“It’s just an expecta-tion,” head coach Dana Beal said. “We’ve been to the state finals four times in the past few years. We expect to win state at the start of every year.”

It’s likely a good year for high expectations: St. Paul returns eight seniors, including all-stater Kourtney Kne-sek and all-district first-teamer Alexa Schaefer.

“We have a big class of seniors,” Beal said. “Just about everybody is back. We have more height than we’ve had in the past, and there’s a lot of versatility.”

The Lady Cardi-nals will have three big hitters up front in middle blocker Jacy Pawelek and outside hitters Morgan Long and Schaefer. The ad-ditional height will enable Beal to use a three-middle rotation,

adding Samantha Sie-gel and Katie Denson to the mix.

“We should be able to make it a lot more difficult for the de-fense to figure out what we’re doing,” Beal said.

Knesek earned all-state honors as a setter last season, but Beal said she also has the ability to play up front and that will bring se-nior Mary Adamek into the mix.

“She’s been doing a really nice job at setter so far,” Beal said.

The returning start-ers also include seniors Kaitelynn Leist and Abby Hall, as well as libero Madison Kurtz and defensive special-ist Kylie Natal. Katie Denson also brings back experience as an underclassman.

Beal said it’s still tough to tell who will emerge from a large group of underclass-men to claim spots on the varsity. That group includes Christina Squyres, Kimberlie Malatek, Melanie Wag-ner, Bethany Pokluda, Abby Irvin, Cassidy Thomas, Elise Patek, Kaitlyn Cappleman,

Isabella Crawford, Morgan Hull, Destiny Garza, Victoria Kusak, Blair Spaeth, Samantha Natal, Emily Pokluda and McKenzie Kresta.

“We’re running a faster offense this year,” Beal said. “The girls are adapting to that. It’s a good adjust-ment.”

One factor Beal said should help her team reach its peak will be better competition.

“We’re really excited that we’re in a much more competitive dis-trict this year,” she said. “Of course there’s always Sacred Heart, but you can’t really point to any one team and say that’s the one you have to beat. We just expect every op-ponent to be good this year and stay focused on our side of the net.”

And with so much playoff experience, Beal said the Lady Cardinals always keep tabs on who else is do-ing well.

“Boerne Geneva is the defending region-al champion in 1A, they’ve done it back to back, so we expect them to be up there this year,” she said.

Alexa Schaefer Jacy Pawelek Katelyn Leist

Kourtney Knesek Katie Denson Kylie Natal

Madison Kurtz Morgan Long Mary Adamek

Kyle Chunda Laddie Patek Martin Kennedy

Mitchell McElroy Ryan Kapavik Sam Wenske

Sean Wenske Travis Raabe Tyler Morgan

Kymberlie Malatek Abby Hall Christina Squyres

Colton Knesek Colton Spahn Connor Pruett

Jared Markham Justin Baker Justin Siegel

Adam Hollenbach Austin Horne Ben Janecek

Dakota Kresta Dillon Zella Dylan Barton

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Senior-laden St. Paulsets sights on state titleBy DAVE MUNDY

[email protected]

ST. PAUL: Cards aimat return to state finals


YOAKUM — The Lady Bulldogs volleyball team will have their work cut out for them once district play starts.

Yoakum has been grouped with rivals Gonzales and Cuero, along with La Grange, Smithville and Giddings, in the new District 26-3A.

Gonzales made the playoffs for the first time since 2007 under fourth-year head coach Kim Payne. Gonzales lost to Devine, 3-2, in the bi-district round.

La Grange won their old 23-3A district last year and battled all the way to the regional quarterfinals, falling to Bellville. Giddings won third place, but fell in the bi-district round to Bellville.

That is the bad news for Yoakum.The good news is former Yoakum assistant

and first-year head coach Alisha Boysen wel-comes eight starters and five seniors from a 26-12 team that were bi-district champions, runners up in 28-3A and area finalists.

“With the new district, it is going to be tougher and I think the girls know that,” Boy-sen said. “I think they are ready to take that challenge.”

Boysen said there are a couple of girls who are nursing injuries during the pre-season workouts, but feels other players on the team will step up to fill the void.

Boysen said she will run the 5-1 formation on the court.

The Yoakum front line will start out con-sisting of outside hitter Lesley Seidenberger, middle blocker Catherine Hunter, Danielle Pohl and Latrice Brown.

“Latrice is young but I feel she is up to the challenge,” Boysen said.

The Lady ‘Dogs will use two players at the setter position, Callie Witte and Faith Hagan.

Lexie Williams is slated to play in the libero/defensive specialist spot.

“Lexie was not the libero last season but she has been working really hard to learn the po-sition,” Boysen said. “She spent the summer learning how to play libero.”

Early on, Yoakum appears to excel in the blocking phase of the game.

“We see the court really well,” Boysen said. “I think our blocking will come into play for us this year.”

With some new faces on varsity, it might take a little time to get everyone on the same page.

“We will have a challenge making adjust-ments because I have a lot of young kids that have not been on the court in the varsity aspect,” she said. “The team did well com-municating on the court during the summer league.”

To start off the season, Yoakum has entered three tough tournaments — Columbus, Sin-ton and Goliad.

“There is tough competition in the Colum-bus tournament. Same thing with the Sinton tournament. When you play down south, you see teams that you usually do not see,” Boysen said. “Last year, we won the Goliad Tourna-ment and hope to do as well this year.”

In pre-district matches, Yoakum faces the likes of Victoria East, Columbus, Port Lavaca Calhoun, Rice, Beeville, Navarro, Goliad, Vic-toria St. Joseph and El Campo.

Boysen said that schedule will help prepare the team for the tough battle in district.

“Victoria East will be a tough match,” she said.

Boysen said she expects the whole district to be a challenge.

“The district is tough all across the board,” Boysen said. “I feel we will be able to run with the rest of the teams. If the girls do their job, we can be at the top with everyone else.”

Yoakum spikers start Boysen tenure in tough district

YOAKUM — The Yoakum Bulldogs football team went into the last game of the 2011 season with a chance to make the playoffs, however, things did not go the way it needed to for Yoakum to make the post-season.

The near-miss of the playoffs has whetted the appetite of the ‘Dogs to make the play-offs for the upcoming 2012 season.

“I think our kids understand what it takes to get to the playoffs,” Bulldog head coach Brent Kornegay said. “Our playoff chances came down to the last game in 2011 and our kids are hungry to get to that situation.”

As soon as 2011 came to a close on Yoa-kum, the players immediately started prep-arations.

“Our work ethic from the end of the sea-son last year to early August has been tre-mendous,” said Kornegay. “We had good summer workouts and a good turnout in 7-on-7 summer passing league with our quarterback and other skilled positions.”

Yoakum returns 17 starters — eight on offense and nine on defense.

Kornegay said last year it was the skilled positions that had the depth. This year both the skilled positions and the offensive line will have depth.

“We are blessed with two quarterbacks that are talented and willing to learn and be coached,” he said. “Both are leaders and command respect.”

If everyone is relatively healthy, then Yoa-kum has depth across the board.

“Being deep on varsity gives us the chance to keep the sophomores on the ju-nior varsity team and keep them together,” Kornegay said. “

On offense, Yoakum will run multiple formations and have a balanced offense.

“We will run our bread and butter, do the things we know we can hang our hat on and throw in a wrinkle here or a new forma-tion,” he said.

Chase Hermes, junior and JV quarter-back, and Tre Hights are the quarterbacks for the ‘Dogs this year.

“Chase has gotten better. He takes com-mand of what is going on and teammates respect him,” Kornegay said. “Tre has speed and athletiscm. He ran a 50.3 in the quarter-mile last year as a freshman.”

Fullbacks will be Devante Price, Terrence

Hall and Braiden Drozd, who played line-backer last year.

“Terrence was on JV last year,” Kornegay said.

At the running back spot, Yoakum has Blake McCracken, Myron Hights, Miguel Resendiz, Timmy Blakeney and Reagan Ja-cobs. Keith Ratley and Todrick Hights will man the ‘Dog receiver positions.

“Keith had a great 7-on-7 season,” Korne-gay said. “Todrick was a JV running back last year and he has good hands.”

TJ Hights, Ryan Kvinta and Troy Macha are the Yoakum tight ends.

At center, 2011 starting tackle Jake West will snap the ball. West tops the scale at 250 pounds. State powerlifting champion Willie Hights (335 pounds) has moved to right guard; Zaine Terry has moved from left tackle to right tackle; Tony Ratley (230 pounds) will start at left guard and Riley Rutledge will play left tackle.

Offensive-line backups are Shawn Brandt, Jacob Linn, Clay Morris, Dalton Jansen, Matt Zimmerman, De’Quan White and Gabriel Garcia.

The ‘Dogs will line up in the ‘50’ defense for 2012.

The defensive line front four will be Linn, Terry, and Jansen at defensive end. Another variation will have Rico Perry, Garcia and White play the ‘5’ or defensive end spot.

Tony Ratley, Willie Hights and Rutledge will play the ‘3’ spot. The other defensive end (Bandit) will be played by Kvinta, Mor-ris or Aaron Chumchal

Price and Drozd will play linebacker; TJ Hights and Macha will be the ‘Sam’ line-backer. The ‘Dogs will also have underclass-men, Ricky Carmarillo and Resendiz, in the mix as well.

Yoakum will have Keith Ratley, Myron Hights, Tre Hights, Hermes and Carl Kaiser at cornerback; safeties will be McCracken, Blakeney, Hall, Todrick Hights and Jacobs.

Edgar Maravilla and Jacobs are the players at placekicker that the coaches are evaluating, with Macha and Hermes serving as punter.

The ‘Dogs open at Columbus, host Sinton and Hallettsville back-to-back, travel to Edna and end non-district at home against Rice Consolidated.

“I think our non-district schedule is very competitive,” Kornegay said. “Hal-lettsville is picked to win their district

and Edna is picked for the playoffs.”“Rice is always a force. Columbus is

good and Sinton is picked to win their district. It is competitive, which is what we need to compete in our district.”

Following an open date on Oct. 5, Yoakum opens 26-3A play at Smithville and stay on the road the next week at Cuero.

Two of Yoakum’s three last games are at home as Gonzales visits on Oct. 26, Yoakum is away to La Grange and closes out the regular season Nov. 9 at home against Giddings.

“Anyone can beat anyone on any giv-

en night and there is no clear-cut favor-ite to win it, in my opinion,” Kornegay said. “There are so many good athletes and coaches on the district teams.”

“It is just a matter of who gets the breaks during the course of the year. I do not think there is a lot of separation. You have to play every Friday night.”

He said most of the coaching staff has stayed together for several years and the consistency of the staff helps the at-titude of the players.

“We have got good kids who work and play hard,” Kornegay said. “They know what it takes to be successful.”

Bulldogs hunting a breakout performance in ‘12

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2012 Varsity Yoakum Bulldogs

2012 Junior Varsity Bulldogs

2012 Freshman Bulldogs

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2012 Varsity Lady Bulldogs

2012 Junior Varsity Lady Bulldogs

2012 Freshman Lady Bulldogs

CUERO — Last season for the Cuero volleyball team was not what they wanted or expected at all.

The Lady Gobblers ended up tied for third in 28-3A and had to take part in a playoff for third place with Gonzales and Pleasanton.

Cuero fell short to Gonzales and missed the playoffs.

“The girls are working very hard because they remember that bad taste,” Cuero head coach Rebec-ca Riojas said. “It will be a tough district so we will have to work hard just to make the playoffs.”

Cuero has joined Gon-zales and Yoakum to meet up with La Grange, Giddings and Smithville to form 26-3A, which Riojas said would be very tough.

“Whoever out of our district makes the play-offs, they will be ready to take on teams in the play-

offs,” she said. Cuero has six returning

starters and will field four seniors on the team. Rio-jas said she plans to bring the Lady Gobblers out in either the 6-2 or the 5-1.

“I might run two set-ters,” she said. “Usually, I just have one setter.”

One advantage and dis-advantage for Riojas this season is she has players who can excel at multiple positions on the court.

“I have done five or six rotations among my returners,” she said. “My job of making sure I have the right players in the right spots will be tough.”

Ashley Grahmann was back and forth last season at libero and could do the same as well as help out at defensive specialist.Brandi Phillips, who was an outside hitter, could play outside hitter, oppo-site side hitter or middle blocker.

Abby Sheppard played middle blocker in 2011 and will play outside hit-ter this year or could also

play opposite-side hit-ter. Cay Cay Toot played defensive specialist and libero last year, and could play as one of the setters.

“She is little but do not let her size intimidate you,” Riojas said. “Cay Cay is also very vocal and brings spark. She’s a great team leader.”

Toot can play either front or back row, serving Cuero as a utility player.

Tiffani Shellenbarger, who played as the lone setter in 2011, figures to do setting again in 2012.

‘She is also small but can play front and back row,” Riojas said.

Emmarie Johnson saw action at outside hitter and could possibly play opposite and middle. Missy Odom and Justyce Turner were sophomores who started on junior varsity last year and later reassigned to the varsity team.

“We moved them up to varsity for the play-in for third place,” Riojas said.

Odom was a middle blocker and Turner was the JV libero after play-ing outside on varsity in 2011.

“She looks comfort-able back there and that may be her role,” Riojas said. “But she does bring power when she hits on front or back row.”

Most of the team played in the summer league against nearby programs Gonzales, Hallettsville, Shiner, Yoakum, and Shiner St.

Paul. Riojas said she was impressed from what she saw.

“Our passing looked better from last fall,” she said. “Some of the younger players got to play with the experi-enced ones and did a good job.”

Cuero will compete in the Shiner, Goliad and Sinton Tournaments.

“We will see a lot of different styles of volley-ball played at these tour-naments,” Riojas said. “In Shiner, we might see the teams we play in dis-trict so we will be able to compare ourselves to them. We will see Gon-zales and Yoakum in Go-liad, which will be good for us.”

She also described tournament play as both bonding moments for the team and the abil-ity to learn by watching other squads compete.

In non-district single matches, they will play Nordheim, Nixon-Smi-ley, Port Lavaca Cal-houn, Woodsboro, San Antonio Cole, Wharton, Rice, Shiner and Bay City.

“Port Lavaca is always strong and run a quick offense which we will see a lot this year. I always try to schedule them,” Riojas said. “Wharton is the same way and Shiner, too.”

As far as the new dis-trict goes, Riojas said not to consider any team as

not tough or competitive.“La Grange always

competes. We played them in the area round a couple of years ago af-ter we had won district the first time,” she said. “They beat us in four. La Grange was strong and had a freshman on that team who will be a senior this season.”

Riojas said the team will bond better with four seniors.

“The older players will push the younger play-ers to be better,” she said. “And the team is always together and not sepa-rated by grade classifica-tion. They just have that connection.”


CUERO — Time to move on.

The Cuero Gobblers football team had an un-usual season last year, go-ing 3-7 overall and 3-3 in district to miss the playoffs for the first time in a de-cade.

Head coach Travis Reeve and the team will focus on 2012 and will worry about 2011 no more.

“Obviously, having a los-ing season is something Cuero has not experienced in a while. But our kids have moved beyond it and we are excited about 2012,” he said.

The Gobblers have to take it one thing at a time en route to reaching their potential.

“For pre-season work-outs, we just want to get better each day,” Reeve said. “The kids are really working hard. They under-stand the expectations here in Cuero and they want to be a part of the great tradi-tion we have here.”

Reeve said if Cuero can come out and get better each day and pay atten-tion to detail, they will be able to achieve big things this season. The step-up in work ethic for the Gobblers started with summer vol-untary workouts and 7-on-7 passing league.

The training paid off as

the Gobblers started Au-gust practice in pretty good physical shape.

“We had around 80 kids attend summer workouts,” Reeve said. “Our kids start-ed pre-season workouts in the best shape I have ever seen since my time in Cu-ero. That is a testament to their commitment to want to do the things we need to do to win.”

The 2012 Gobblers re-turn 10 starters, five on each side of the football. The team has huge amount of experience as 20 seniors will dot the roster.

“The seniors are a close-knit group and we expect them to provide great lead-ership,” Reeve said.

Cuero’s 2012 offense will be a balanced, multiple, pro-style system.

“We want to run a few plays out of a lot of differ-ent formations,” Reeve said.

Slated as the starter at quarterback is Blake Reeve and backups will be Hunt-er Fales and Jordan Ver-

nor. Logan Goebel, Justin Kremling and Lane Balfanz are the players who will lineup at fullback.

At the tailback spot will be D’Anthony Hopkins, Dwayne Belvin and Tristan Barfield. Cuero’s main re-ceivers will be Justin Ros-sett and Ross Riemensch-neider.

The Gobblers will deploy tight ends and those players are Tell Holland and Colby Ehrom. The offensive line will be Trey Henderson, Hudson Haas, Caleb Har-vey, Ty Heinson and J’Von Thomas.

The Cuero defense will base out of the 4-2-5 Nickel formation.

Hudson, Haas, Harvey, Heinson and Thomas will anchor the defensive line and will rotate through the positions. Goebel, Krem-ling and Balfanz will switch to linebackers when on de-fense.

Cuero cornerbacks will include Rossett and Rie-menschneider while safety

positions will be staffed by Hopkins, Barfield and Bel-vin.

Goebel will handle all of the placekicking and punt-ing duties for Cuero.

Cuero’s hard-working players will provide ad-vantages for the team. The Mean Green also have ex-perience in both the offen-sive and defensive lines.

Reeve said a lot of leader-ship comes from the quar-terbacks and linebackers. He said like most teams, Cuero has to learn to per-fect all of the little things in football.

“We have to work on technique, taking the right step with our feet, using our hands,” Reeve said. “Running routes correctly. Little things is what wins games.”

“We are constantly try-ing to fine-tune things. I think we will not be where we need to be until the end of the regular season.”

The Gobblers’ non-district games are against

Wharton, Victoria West, Beeville, Somerset and In-gleside.

“Our non-district sched-ule is a good one,” said Reeve. “We will face a mix-ture of offenses: teams that run the football, throw it around a bunch. They are all very talented football teams. It will let us see what we need to work on before district.”

Cuero has a practical perspective on its non-dis-trict schedule.

“Whatever game we are playing that week, will be the most important one,” Reeve said. “I think every one of those games will get us ready to play. Every sin-gle non-district contest will expose something about our football team that the following week will have to be corrected.”

Cuero has been moved into 26-3A, with rivals Gonzales and Yoakum, to greet La Grange, Giddings and Smithville.

Reeve said for the next

two seasons, 26-3A will be the toughest district he will have been in during his seven years in Cuero.

“I do not think there is any team in this district that you can say ‘I think this will be a win’,” he said. “They are all quality foot-ball teams.”

He said it starts with the Apaches, who are coming off an undefeated regular season and outright district title.

“Gonzales has got a lot of good players who are coming back,” Reeve said. “Coach (Ricky) Lock and his staff do a great job of coaching. They will be re-ally good.”

“Giddings, Smithville, La Grange and Yoakum have all got a lot of players com-ing back. We have a lot of outstanding coaches in this district. We will not be able to outcoach anybody. We are going to have to play hard and tough every sin-gle week. It should be a fun district race.”

Gobblers not dwelling on last season, keeping eyes on having a great 2012

Cuero looking to rebound after near-miss in 2011

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2012 Varsity Lady Gobblers

FLATONIA — The Bull-dogs have reason to feel very optimistic about the season.

If they can swat the injury bug away, they will have plen-ty of talented and experienced players.

Head coach Chris Freytag said Flatonia has a lot of ex-perience at the skill positions and have good depth and a

solid front seven on the defen-sive side of the ball. The only major troublesome spot is the depth on the offensive line.

Last year’s injuries caused lineup issues with several players switching positions to make sure the team had as much as it could at each posi-tion.

“We just have to stay healthy,” Freytag said. “The in-juries and their timing killed us.”

Flatonia made the best of an unlucky situation as some of those players forced into unexpected roles now can fall back on some of that experi-ence.

“I felt we were a playoff team until we had two or three big injuries,” he said.

The Bulldogs have 16 start-ers returning, seven on offense and another nine on defense.

Returning offensive starters are Zane Ponder, Will Bruns,

Reed Rightmer, Dalton Grif-fin, Miguel Grifaldo, Mitchell Mica and Jose Cedillo. Back for the defense are Ponder, Bruns, Rightmer, Griffin, Grifaldo, Marcus Mica, Evan Butcher, Mitchell Mica, Aaron Manzano and Cristian Rodri-guez.

Freytag said Flatonia will be multiple on offense, but it will not look like the 2011 offense.

“We will not be as explosive-ness as last year,” he said. “We

will be a more ball-control, possession-style offense. Our backs are really good.”

Ponder’s presence will really help boost the ‘Dog offense.

“We do have one home-run threat every time he touches the ball in Zane,” Freytag said.

Bruns and Colby Craig are vying for the starting quarter-back spot. Freytag said there is a chance both will see playing time at quarterback during

LULING — Luling head coach Colby Hensley is ex-pecting this to be The Year of the Eagle.

After another season of nar-rowly missing the postseason in 2011, Luling seems poised for a breakthrough.

The Eagles finished 4-6 overall last season and went 2-3 in district play. They went into the last game needing a win to qualify, but they were

downed 48-7 by a Blanco team that went four rounds deep into the playoffs.

“Last year was a step in the right direction, but it fell short of what our expectations were,” said Hensley. “We cer-tainly closed the gap on some teams. It would have been fun to stay in our old district to see how we would have ended up, but I guess we’ll just have to wait until the playoffs to see those teams again.”

Hensley was promoted to head coach earlier this year

after Michael Waldie resigned the post and moved to Jack-sonville. Hensley had been a member of Waldie’s staff dur-ing his two-year tenure so familiarity with the program won’t be an issue at all.

“It’s been a smooth transi-tion,” said Hensley. We’ve just kept using the same game plan and the same philosophies, but I’ve put my own personal touch to it.”

“Coach Waldie and I are great friends. We spent a lot of time in the office putting this

plan together so I’m just car-rying it on.”

The Eagles only lost four lettermen, but one of them was Billy Medford. He led the team in rushing, excelled at several positions and was arguably the best athlete in school history.

This year, the offensive catalysts will be junior quar-terback Trayden Staton and running back Brendon Cubit, who was named All-Cannon Newcomer of the Year after rushing for nearly 500 yards

and six touchdowns last sea-son as a freshman.

“Trayden got a lot of reps as a quarterback last year whenever we moved Medford around,” said Hensley. “We were able to give him really good reps as a sophomore, so now that he’s a junior he has a great opportunity to be suc-cessful quickly.”

Luling also has the district’s top returning pass catcher in junior All-State wide receiv-er Ty Anderson (522 yards,

By MARK LUBE

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By CEDRIC IGLEHART

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Fall Sports 2012The Cannon


FLuling Eagles

Sacred Heart Indians

Flatonia Bulldogs

Eagles thinking 2012 may be their year

‘Dogs bank on experienced skill players

Indians retool after championship run

2012 Varsity Eagles

2012 Varsity Bulldogs

2012 Varsity Indians

HALLETTSVILLE — Start-ing a new season with the glow of a state title still send-ing warm fuzzies up and down their spines is nothing new to the Sacred Heart Indians. Af-ter all, the school has won the state title 12 times since the 1950s.

At the same time, says coach Pat Henke, the Indians are

well aware they’re not going to intimidate their way to an-other title.

“It’s a new year. Last year’s over with,” said the vener-able field boss of the Indians, who has guided them to eight of those 12 state titles and a 264-114-1 record since taking over the program in 1981. “We have a lot of new kids starting new chapters.”

Henke isn’t exaggerating, ei-ther. His club returns just five

starters from a team which raced to a 14-1 record, includ-ing a 21-7 win over arch-rival St. Paul for the state champi-onship.

“We’ve got some speed, but the skill people are all new,” he said. “We’ve got to get that continuity down.”

The lone returning offensive starter is Scott Stoner, who moves to the running back position after starting at wide-out last year. He’ll be joined

there by Jonathan Vanek and fullbacks Lucas Allen and Dylan Jahn.

Henke said the backfield key will be Leighton Pilat, who is penciled in at quarterback but could be all over the field be-fore the season’s out.

“If he’s not in at quarterback, he’ll be on the field some-where,” Henke said. “We’ve got to get him lots of touches.”

Likely starters on the line include center Trent Malaer,

guards Cole Easterling and Trent Janak and tackles Brier Shimek and Danson Bludau. Also expected to see a lot of duty up front will be guards Angel Soto and Luke Steffek, tackle Kyle Jahn and Scott Huser, and freshman center Landon Leopold.

Henke is particularly high on Janak at right guard. “He’s gonna be a heck of a guard,” he said. “He’s a former fullback

LULING Page F2

FLATONIA, Page F4

INDIANS, Page F5

By DAVE MUNDY

[email protected]

6TD), who also won the Class 2A high jump at state last year. He will be joined by junior Josh Alvarez and se-nior Jorge Munoz, who caught four touch-downs in 2011.

“Ty can jump up real well,” Hensley said. “He’s fast and he’s got good hands so he should be fun to watch. Josh got a whole bunches of catches last year as well and so did Jorge.”

The Eagles have three starters returning on the offensive line in All-District picks Zach Olguin and Orlando Ordonez at guard with Chess Elley coming back at center.

“The tackles are go-ing to be new guys and we’ve got a four-way

battle for those two spots right now,” said Hensley. “It’s nice to have a little bit of depth there.”

Luling has nine start-ers returning on de-fense and are especially stout up front with El-ley, who was First Team All-District at end, and Tyler Gibson.

“They’re strong and they’re both high-motor guys,” Hensley said. “They are physi-cal and they’re exciting to watch. A.J. Burks is another kid you can’t sleep on. He’s the other defensive end that’s do-ing a really good job as well.”

Hensley said the oth-er starting defensive tackle position is still open and the candi-date pool includes Ol-guin, Aaron Bermudez,

Curley Jackson, Omar Ordonez, and Dontae Green, who weighs in at 6’5” and 280 pounds.

“We’re going to be able to put a lot of bodies up front,” said Hensley. “A lot of teams don’t have the depth there that we do because we’ve spent the past two years devel-oping it in the weight room and through powerlifting. We’re fi-nally going to be able to see how that’s all go-ing to pay off.”

Returning starters at linebacker are Cu-bit and Zach Lawton with Aaron Werlein, Alberto Olvera and Tony Brown compet-ing for the third spot. Alvarez is the lone re-turning starter in the secondary and he will likely be joined at cor-

nerback by Anderson. Hensley said there are several kids in the hunt for the safety positions including Quinton Grant, Abraham Pal-omo, Mark Martinez and freshman Shaft Cubit.

Luling was realigned into District 15-2ADI, where they will com-pete with Marion, George West and Jour-danton, who all made the playoffs last year. The rest of the district consists of Goliad, San Antonio Brooks Acad-emy and San Antonio Cole.

“It’s a great district,” said Hensley. “There are guys like Coach (Wayne) Johnson of Jourdanton and Coach (Tim) Holt at George West who have been doing a good job for

a long time. Marion is going to have some turnover with a new coach, so it’ll be inter-esting to see how that plays out.”

“Goliad is a bit of an unknown going from 3A down to 2A, so we’ll have to see what we get from those guys. The San Antonio schools get their kids from mil-itary bases, so you nev-er know what they’re going to show up with. They’re unpredictable because those families are always moving in and out.”

Luling played an ex-tremely tough non-dis-trict schedule in 2011 that included 3A pow-erhouses like Geron-imo Navarro, Gonza-les and Canyon Lake. The Eagles went 0-3 in those games.

This year’s non-dis-trict slate is comprised of mostly 2A schools in-cluding Universal City Randolph, Rice Con-solidated and Blanco. The only 3A school on the schedule is a home game with Devine.

“The last two years

we’ve been playing 3A’s but it didn’t feel like we were comparing apples to apples,” Hensley explained. “We were challenging ourselves, but we weren’t getting a true evaluation of where we were at. This year’s schedule should give us a good barom-eter of how we compare with other 2A districts.”

Luling returns the most lettermen in the district with nearly 30 and Hensley is hoping that wealth of experi-ence can be used to catapult the Eagles into the postseason.

“What we’ve really fo-cused on is trying to get the kids to buy into be-ing a Luling Eagle,” he said. “I feel really good about how our senior leaders have taken to that.”

“We’re going to have about 20 seniors this year and that’s huge for us. That’s going to be the driving force that gets us over the hump and puts us in the play-offs. Once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen.”

The Cannon’s Fall Sports Preview 2012 Thursday, August 23, 2012Page F2

By CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]

Continued from page F1

Clint Cantu

Orlando Ordonez

Zach Olguin

Taking the next step forward would be a good way to summarize the intention of the Luling volleyball team this season.

Coach Imelda Salazar’s charges over-came a slow start last year and managed to scrap their way into the playoffs by defeat-ing Nixon-Smiley in a play-in game after both teams finished with identical 7-5 dis-trict marks. The Lady Eagles lost in the bi-district round to George West.

“We started off in a hole, but we started slowly moving through the district the way we should have,” said Salazar. “In the sec-ond half of district, we won the games we

should have won the first time around.”“Our inexperience got the better of us in

the playoffs. The nerves got to the girls and they got out of sync.”

Another major distraction from 2011 was the fact that Salazar’s home was jeop-ardized by the great Bastrop County wild-fire.

“I lived in the middle of Bastrop when the fire happened, so those first few games we didn’t win because my head wasn’t here.”

The outlook for this season is very bright since Salazar will field the most experi-enced team she has ever had in her four years at Luling.

Four of the Lady Eagles’ returning se-

niors have been starting since their sopho-more year. They include two-time all-dis-trict selections Maria Castillo and Carly Glass, in addition to Amanda Lee and Mi-randa Sheffield.

The quartet of upperclassmen will be joined by a group of talented underclass-men including juniors Hannah Clark, Jayme Larkin and Megan Emmons, fresh-man Sarah Townsend and sophomore set-ter Claire Patterson.

“Claire is really strong and she can play anywhere,” Salazar said. “She’s got good hands and really stepped up for us last year.”

Duplicating last year’s feat of reach-ing the playoffs will be a daunting task

for Luling this season. The biennial UIL realignment placed them in District 28-2A along with their former district mates Nixon-Smiley and Stockdale. The other league members – Hallettsville, Karnes City, Schulenburg and defending state champion Poth – all qualified for the play-offs last year.

“I’m really looking forward to compet-ing for a playoff spot,” Salazar said. “It’s going to be really tight and there should a bunch of us vying for those playoff spots.”

“Poth never rebuilds, they just reload and Hallettsville has a lot of height. If we keep on track the way we should, we should be able to get one of those three playoff spots.”

Leonard Lopez Albert Olvera Shawnessy Marsha

Ceasar Sanchez Donnie Lancaster Tyler Gibson

Omar Ordonez Curley Jackson Dontae Green

Keeton Coe Brendon Cubit Ty Anderson

Taylen Moore Tony Brown Trey Hernandez

Trayden Slaton

Jorge Munoz Aaron Werlein

Shaft Cubit

AJ Burks Chess Elley

Lady Eagles aiming high in 2012 season

Lillian H. SmithTexas Ranch Specialist

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Good Luck To All Area

Teams!

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LULING: Experience has Eagles optimistic

The Cannon’s 2012 Fall Sports PreviewThursday, August 23, 2012 Page F3

Good Luck Eagles, Bulldogs & Indians!

2012 Junior Varsity Eagles

2012 Varsity Lady Bulldogs

2012 Varsity Indianettes

2012 Flatonia Bulldogs Varsity Football

Aug.23 Hallettsville (Scrim) A 5 p.m.Aug.31 Nixon-Smiley H 7:30Sept.7 Sacred Heart A 7:30Sept.14 Somerville H 7:30 Sept.21 Schulenburg A 7:30Sept.28 Ganado A 7:30Oct.5 Burton A 7:30Oct.12 *Holland A 7:30Oct.19 *Weimar H 7:30Oct.26 *Thorndale A 7:30Nov.2 OPENNov.9 *Thrall H 7:30*District game

Flatonia Volleyball 2012

Aug. 10 Cedar Creek (Scrimmage) A JV/V 10 a.m.Aug.11 Smithville (Scrimmage) A JV/V 9Aug. 13, 15 Schulenburg Tourn. A F/JV TBAAug.14 Rice/Sealy A JV/V 3:30 p.m.Aug.16-18 Shiner Tournament A V TBAAug. 21 Schulenburg A JV/V 5Aug. 23-25 Schulenburg Tourn. V TBAAug.28 Shiner St. Paul A JV/V TBAAug. 30, Sept.1 Rice Tourn. A JV/V TBAAug.31 Nixon H V/JV TBASept.4 *Shiner H JV/V 5Sept.6-8 Flatonia Tourn. H JV TBASept. 7 Sacred Heart A V/JV 4:30Sept.11 *Prairie Lea A JV/V 5Sept.14 BYESept.18 *Waelder A JV/V 5Sept.22 *Louise H V 11 a.m.Sept.25 *Weimar A JV/V 5 p.m.Sept.28 *Ganado H V/JV 4:30Oct.2 *Shiner A JV/V 5Oct.5 *Prairie Lea H V/JV 4Oct.9 BYEOct.12*Waelder H V 4Oct.16 *Louise A JV/V 5Oct.19 *Weimar H V/JV 4:30Oct.23*Ganado A JV/V 5*District game

Sacred Heart 2012 VolleyballAug.11 Weimar Scrimmage H F/JV/V TBAAug.14 Weimar A F/JV/V 5 p.m.Aug.16-18 Shiner Tournament A V TBAAug.21 Shiner A F/JV/V 5Aug.23, 25 Schulenburg Tourn. A V TBAAug.28 Victoria St. Joseph A F/JV/V 5Aug.30 *Austin Waldorf H F/JV/V 5Sept.4 *Shiner St. Paul H F/JV/V 5Sept.7 Flatonia H V/JV 4:30Sept.11*Universal City First Baptist A JV/V 5Sept.13 *New Braunfels Christian A V 6Sept.18 *Austin Vertitas Academy H F/JV/V 4:30Sept.20 *New Braunfels John Paul II H JV/V 5:30Sept.24 *Austin Waldorf A F/JV/V 5Sept.27 *Shiner St. Paul A F/JV/V 5Oct.4 *Universal City First Baptist H JV/V 5Oct.9 *New Braunfels Christian H V 6Oct.11 *Austin Veritas Academy A F/JV/V 4:30Oct.16 *New Braunfels John Paul II A JV/V 5:30*District game

Hallettsville Sacred Heart Indians Varsity FootballAug.23 Tidehaven ScrimmageA 7:30 p.m.Aug.31 Yorktown A 7:30Sept.7 Flatonia H 7:30Sept.14 Katy Faithwest H 7:30Sept.21 Thorndale A 7:30Sept.28 Louise H 7:30Oct.4 Austin McCallum JV A 7Oct.12 *Bryan St. Joseph A 7:30Oct.20 *John Paul II H 4:30Oct.26 *San Ant. St. Gerard A 7:30Nov.2 *Brazos Christian A 7:30Nov.9 *Shiner St. Paul H 7:30*District games

2012 Junior Varsity Bulldogs



FLATONIA — Replac-ing five experienced start-ers would be an obstacle for any high school volleyball team.

It will especially be for Flatonia, who won 32 games last year en route to a regional quarterfinals ap-pearance in the UIL Class 1A playoffs.

“The girls are aware that losing that kind of experi-ence will pose a challenge,” first-year head coach Kay-lyn Boenisch said. “The first week of practice, they recognized that they are going to have to step it up to fill those spots and work hard to make something happen.”

Flatonia and Boenisch will have to replace the services of Leanna Dunk, the All-Cannon Volleyball Player of the Year, along with Alex Bruns, Kaci Pav-licek, Abigail Rodriguez and Courtney Mica.

Flatonia will return two starters from last year in-cluding senior Abigail Sch-acherl and junior Chan-dler Fike. The Lady ‘Dogs will also have the experi-ence of three other senors: Meredith Pavlica, Brittany Silva and Hilary Koncaba.

“Abigail Schacherl shows

the most court awareness and brings the most uplift-ing attitude,” Boenisch said. “Meredith is determined to be the big block she needs to be for the team. Brittany is recovering from an in-jury sustained during bas-ketball, so we hope she will be back by the time district starts. Hilary is a good de-fensive player.”

Boenisch is not exclu-sively running with a one- or two-setter system.

“I will look at doing what

is best for the team,” she said.

Fike and fellow junior Katie Steinhauser will man the outside hitter spots; Schacherl, Kylie Mica and Kimberlyn Michalec will be opposite-side hitters with Maecie Mikulenka also figuring in the equa-tion.

Pavlica and Savannah Flood are slated to be the middle blockers. Crystal Rodriguez will play at the libero position, with Sch-

acherl and Alanis Ribera at the setter spots. Elena Gomez, Brooke Migl and Dana Luck round out the varsity roster.

Flatonia’s players put the student in student-athletes.

“The girls are young and very eager to learn,” Boen-isch said. “Which I feel will pay off in the long run.”

“We will need to work on our blocking, running a variety of hits and still learning how to play with one another on the court as

well as talking and commu-nication.”

The Lady ‘Dogs will com-pete in the Shiner, Schul-enburg and Rice Tourna-ments. Boenisch said they are all quality tournaments for Flatonia to get experi-ence.

In other non-district ac-tion, Flatonia faces Rice, Sealy, Schulenburg, Shiner St. Paul, Nixon-Smiley and Hallettsville Sacred Heart.

“Our non-district will be tough. Sealy is a good

3A team while Rice and Schulenburg are good 2A programs,” she said. “It will give us what we need to prepare for district.

Flatonia is in District 26-1A with Weimar, Waelder, Louise, Ganado, Prairie Lea and Shiner.

“With Weimar coming down from 2A and some new coaches in the district, it will be a tight race,” Boe-nisch said.

the season.“Will can throw better on the run

and Colby reads the veer better,” he said. “They are both very smart kids.”

Mitchell and Marcus Mica will serve as fullback. Flatonia has a group of players that can all contribute to the offense as the tailback. Manzano will play as wingback while Griffin and Ponder will play at tailback.

Ponder will also see some time at re-ceiver, where he excelled last year.

“I think last year Zane set some school records in number of catches, receiving yards and receiving touch-downs,” Freytag said. “He also rushed for 400 yards. Zane is in good shape and he runs fast.”

Other receivers are Butcher, Right-mer and Gus Venegas.

Both Micas will occasionally line up as the tight end and Butcher will too. Grifaldo will play center while strong/right guard will be Nathan Kozelsky. Left guard will be manned by Daniel Flores, Cedillo and Mike Garcia will play right tackle, Abraham Centeno

will play left tackle. Also part of the of-fensive-line group is Lane Janecka and Frank Guerrero.

Flatonia has little depth at offensive line.

“Staying healthy is key because our problem on offensive line is quantity, not quality,” Freytag said.

At defensive end will be Manzano and Mitchell Mica with Kozelsky and Janecka. Flores and Cedillo will be the defensive tackles along with Garcia and Centeno.

Grifaldo is the middle linebacker who moved there from defensive tack-le.

“We moved him because he has a nose for the ball,” Freytag said. “If you run the ball inside, he will pun-ish you.”

Bruns will play strong-side line-backer with Rodriguez and Marcus Mica at weak-side linebacker. Mar-cus Mica and Eddie Manzano are also competing for weak-side linebacker.

At cornerback are Ponder, Venegas and Griffin. Rightmer will play free safety and Butcher will play strong

safety/rover. Backups are Zach Velas-quez and Craig.

“Our defense will be a quick-attack-ing defense,” Freytag said. “I think the front seven will be really good by the end of the year.”

Flatonia will run a different 4-3 than last year but are doing well in learning the adjustments.

“Linebackers are the strength of the defense,” Freytag said. “New defensive coordinator Steven Pope has brought in a defense he is comfortable with and we went from zone coverage to man-to-man in the secondary.”

Bruns is slated to be the placekicker, and Venegas or Craig as punter.

In non-district, Flatonia will play Nixon-Smiley, Sacred Heart, Somer-ville, Schulenburg and former district foe Ganado.

Freytag said the pre-district sched-ule is one of the toughest one he has ever had in his 10 years at Flatonia.

He singled out Ganado and Schul-enburg as tough opponents to go along with a “loaded” Nixon team and an always-challenging Hallettsville

Sacred Heart, the 2011 TAPPS Divi-sion IV state champion.

Flatonia is in District 13-1A Divi-sion I with Holland, Thorndale, Thrall and Weimar. Thorndale and Weimar were both 2A before the UIL realign-ment in February.

“The district will not be as strong as it usual is, but will still be competi-tive,” Freytag said.

For the entire community, success will hopefully breed more success across the sports program.

The ‘Dogs will be motivated to have great success in football because of the fame brought on by the 2012 Fla-tonia softball team that won the state title.

“It has an effect on the whole town,” Freytag said. “When a community is talking about a sport, the kids hear about it and get excited. Everyone is excited about football. Everyone is ex-cited about volleyball.”

“I think the boys want to bring ex-citement back to football with the playoffs. We have not been to the playoffs since 2007.”

Abraham Centeno Colby Craig Dalton Griffin

Frank Guerrero Gus Venegas Jacob Mason

Lane Janecka Marcus Mica Will Bruns

Daniel Flores Eddie Manzano Evan Butcher

Jonathan Velasquez Jose Cedillo Karl Steinhauser

Miguel Grifaldo Reed Rightmer Zane Ponder

Chandler Fike Crystal Rodriguez Elena Gomez

Kimberlyn Michalec Meredith Pavlica Savannah Flood

Alanis RiberaAbigail Schacherl

Hilary Koncaba Katie Steinhauser

FLATONIA: Experienced backs spur hopes

Lady ‘Dogs rebuild after super seasonBy MARK LUBE

[email protected]

and he’s made the transi-tion real well.”

The tight ends include probable starters Casey Jirkovsy and Cade Brew-er as well as Nicholas Ha-dash, while Cullen Wick and Alex De La Rosa will operate outside.

The problem on both sides of the ball will be depth. The Indians lost three players to season-ending injuries before workouts began this summer, including 275-pound tackle Chris Kunz, and will suit up only 29 players this fall. Also lost before the sea-son were senior Brady

Sitka and Hunter Janak.“It’s probable we’ll

wind up with nine or ten people going both ways,” Henke said.

Depth aside, the Indi-ans still have size and tal-ent defensively.

Shimek (6-2, 240) will hold down one DT post. “He’s a good one,” Hen-ke said. Cole Easterling (195) will man the other DT spot. backups will include Steffek, Bluda, Huser and Kyle Jahn.

At the ends will be Trent Janak and Trent Millar, and Henke said to expect to see Soto in that spot as well. “He’ll play quite a lot,” the coach said.

Sophomore Braden Jansky and big senior Lucas Allen are battling for the middle linebacker spot, while Jirkovsky and Pilat are returning start-ers in the outside posi-tions. Hadash, another soph, also expects to see plenty of field time at any of the three LB posts.

Vanek returns to start at one cornerback post, with Stoner likely the starter on the other side. Brewer and Wick will man the safeties, and henke said he’s anxious to see Dylan Jahn and freshmen Caleb Krischke and Tyler Kraatz on the field as well.

“I think starting off the year we’re going to feel good about our defense,” Henke said. “In particu-lar I think our second-ary is a strong point, and we have depth on the defensive line. if we stay healthythe defense has a real chance to be real good.”

Staying healthy is a big

theme for the Indians this season, however.

“If we stay healthy, es-pecially our first 11, we’ll do well,” Henke said. “We don’t have near the depth we’ve had in the past. Our enrollment (at the school) isn’t down any, we just have fewer players that have come out.”

Other the other hand, Henke’s already optimis-tic about the future.

“We’ve got a big class of freshmen (19) and there are 18 eighth-grad-ers coming up,” he said.


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HALLETTSVILLE — First things first.

The Sacred Heart vol-leyball team wants to be playing as a team and play-ing consistent before it can make serious plans to com-pete for a district title and make another trip to the playoffs.

“Our first goal is to play as a team,” said head coach Wanda Orsak. “We have struggled with that lately. We also want to be consis-tent with our passing and with our attacking game.”

Orsak said the team will get better and better as the season progresses.

“We will try to win our district and hopefully qual-ify for the postseason. Then win a round or two,” she said.

Sacred Heart will have a group of seasoned players to count on.

Seven returning players from last year’s team that advanced into the Texas

Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) playoffs: Emily Harper, Adrienne Klimitchek, Robyn Pavlicek, Sandra Ad-ams, Jenna Brown, Kirsten Heger and Amber Labay.

The Indianettes took an early exit as they fell 3-0 in the bi-district round to Fort Worth Lake Country.

Finishing out the roster is Jaycie Orsak, Erin Miksch, Hailey Smith, Rachel Saul-nier and Lauren Huser.

Orsak said Sacred Heart struggled in some early games because of injury to setter/middle blocker Klim-itchek.

The Indianettes are not a small team — in their per-spective.

Several players stand 5 feet, 10 inches or taller, with Adams topping out at 5-11.

Tentatively, Sacred Heart will go with Pavlicek, Harp-er, Smith, Heger and Labay as outside hitters.

The middle blockers in addition to Klimitchek are Adams and Miksch.

Brown will play as the li-

bero for Sacred Heart with Jaycie Orsak and Huser also contributing efforts to the spot.

Klimitchek will be the setter along with Saulnier, who will play if Klimitchek is not a go for the match.

Sacred Heart took on Weimar and Shiner in pre-district and took part in the Shiner Tournament. They will play in the Schulen-burg Tournament and play one last non-district match against Victoria St. Joseph.

Sacred Heart will then open district play with Aus-tin Waldorf at the end of this month and continue on with Universal City First Baptist, New Braunfels Christian, Austin Veritas Academy, New Braunfels John Paul II and Shiner St. Paul.

Amongst the district play the Indianettes will play a non-district match against Flatonia.

“Our schedule is tough. I think the Shiner Tourna-ment is a tough one,” Orsak said. “Schulenburg Tourna-

ment is always tough. St. Joe, Shiner and Weimar are all tough. “

The Indianettes need to have all of their ducks in row in a very short time for

district play.“St. Paul is good, New

Braunfels Christian is good. We split with them last year in district,” she said. “Those two are the key team. I am

not sure about the others. The schools in the bigger cities are tough because they play a lot of club vol-leyball.”

Will Wallace Troy Murphy

Dalton Herrington Dylan Kerr

Teidrick Smith Tim Sheppard

Hallettsville BrahmasHALLETTSVILLE —

Things got real interest-ing near the end of last season in Brahma-land.

Hallettsville came out of nowhere to win four of six district games and finish tied for second in the league standings, then pounded out a pair of playoff victories be-fore old nemesis Hemp-stead finally got the Brahmas corralled.

The fences are looking weak this season.

The Brahmas re-turn 14 starters from last year’s 7-6 club and coach Tommy Psencik said his club has the chance to look even bet-ter than last year — if it can maintain confi-dence.

“For the most part, our kids know their as-signments,” Psencik said after watching his Brah-mas square off against a pretty good Gonzales club on Saturday. “We just need a little more confidence. We have a lot of sophomores.”

The inexperience will be most crucial at the quarterback position — but the Brahmas have a bevy of experienced backs and receivers to ease the transition for sophomore Nate Kowa-lik, who’s the only play-er currently penciled in exclusively at the posi-tion.

He’ll have plenty of help, however. Junior Dalton Herrington earned all-district hon-ors a year ago, and he broke loose for a 70-yard TD during Sat-urday’s scrimmage. Other veterans among

the backs and receivers include seniors Car-son Schindler, Teidrick Smith, Regan McAda and Tate Bludau, as well as juniors Tim Shep-pard, Drew Haas and Justin Reeves. Sopho-mores Jimario Grounds, Weston Seay, Brannen Caraway, Trenton Mc-Gee, Eric Klekar and Seth Grasshoff also fig-ure on getting into the mix on a regular basis.

Psencik said his big-gest concern in his team’s spread attack is the offensive line— but that’s also where the bulk of his seniors are

concentrated.Center Will Wallace

returns as the anchor of the line, and he’s joined by senior veterans Cam-eron Nicholson, Troy Murphy, Daylin Dixon, Ryan Hoffman, Quinton Wright and Sam Bar-rera.

The Brahmas also have a solid crop of juniors up front, including Elondre McAfee, Eddie Lopez, Dylan Kerr, Alex Bludau, Tyler Steffek, Tyler Skel-ton and Kyle Leopold. Promising newcomers include sophomores Reid Leopold and Ja’Kree Por-ter.

The defensive starters are led by holdovers Mur-phy and Kerr, and Psencik said his staff’s biggest task is filling the linebacker spots beside Kerr.

“Our defensive line has got to do a better job of setting the tone to get rid of our jitters,” he said. “We’ve got a couple of sophomores we’re looking at at line-backer and the line has got to give them time to adjust.”

After 2011 run, Brahmas ready for encore

Indianettes look for cohesion early

INDIANS: Reload for ‘12

Adrienne Klimitchek Robyn Pavlicek

Jenna Brown Kirsten Heger

Emily Harper

Sandra Adams

By DAVE [email protected]

By MARK LUBE

[email protected]


Scott Stoner Brier Shimek

Cade Brewer Casey Jirkovsky

Leighton Pilat Lucas AllenCole Easterling


Lockhart High School Lions2012 Varsity Football Schedule

Date Day Opponent Site Time08/18 Saturday Cuero (Scrimmage) LION’S FIELD 7:00 P.M. 08/24 Friday La Grange (Scrimmage) La Grange 7:00 P.M. 08/31 Friday Victoria West (Senior Parent Night) LION’S FIELD 7:30 P.M. 09/06 Thursday Austin Crockett Burger Stadium 7:30 P.M. 09/14 Friday Cedar Creek (Old Timer’s Game) LION’S FIELD 7:30 P.M. 09/21 Friday OPEN 09/28 Friday *Seguin Seguin 7:30 P.M. 10/05 Friday *Clemens (Pop Warner Night) LION’S FIELD 7:30 P.M. 10/12 Friday *Hays Shelton Field 7:30 P.M. 10/19 Friday *Boerne Champion (Jr. High Night) LION’S FIELD 7:30 P.M. 10/26 Friday *Alamo Heights Alamo Heights 7:30 P.M. 11/02 Friday *Lehman (Homecoming) LION’S FIELD 7:30 P.M. 11/09 Friday *Tivy Kerrville 7:30 P.M.

* Denotes District Game

Good Luck Brahmas, Lions & Indians!

2012 Varsity Brahmas

2012 Varsity Lions

2012 Varsity Lady BrahmasFront row, Emma Wick, Morgan Mitchon, Sha’tiara Runnels, Alicia Grahmann. Back, Madi Schindler, Heather Henneke, Cassidy Targac, Lana Hickson, Kenzie Etzler. (Courtesy Photo)

2012 Freshman Lions

2012 Junior Varsity Lions

Hallettsville 2012 VolleyballAug. 10 Columbus/St. Joe Scrim H F/JV/V 9 a.m.Aug.11 Sealy/Shiner/Yoakum H 8Aug.13 Schulenburg Tournament A F/JV TBAAug.14 Giddings/Bastrop A F/JV/V 9Aug.15 Schulenburg Tournament A F/JV TBAAug.16-18Columbus Tournament A V TBAAug.21 La Grange H F/JV/V 3/4/5 p.m.Aug. 23, 25Schulenburg Tourn A V TBAAug.24 Columbus A F/JV/V 4/5/6Aug.28 Round Top CarmineAug.30-Sept. 1Rice Tournament A F/JV TBAAug,30-Sept.1 Goliad Tourn A JV TBASept.4 *Schulenburg A F/JV/V 5/6/7Sept.7 Shiner A F/V/JV 4/5/6Sept.11 *Karnes City H F/JV/V 5/6/7Sept.14 Burton H JV/V 4:15Sept.18 *Luling H F/JV/V 5/6/7Sept.21 *Stockdale H V/JV 4:30/5:30Sept.25 *Nixon-Smiley A F/JV/V 5/6/7Sept.28 *Poth H F/JV/V 4:30/4:30/5:30Oct.2 *Schulenburg H F/JV/V 5/6/7Oct.5 *Karnes City A F/JV/V 4:30/4:30/5:30Oct.9 BYEOct.13 *Luling A F/JV/V 10/10/11 a.m.Oct.16 *Stockdale A JV/V 5/6 p.m.Oct.20 *Nixon-Smiley H F/JV/V 10/10/11 a.m.Oct.23 *Poth A F/JV/V 5/6/7 p.m.


By CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]

It’s Year Two of the Paul Kilby era in Lockhart and another year has brought another level of enthusi-asm and optimism for the members of Lion Nation.

Kilby took over a pro-gram that won just one game in 2010 and doubled that win total last year, de-spite not arriving on cam-pus in time to stage a full offseason program.

“I think it was a typi-cal year when a coaching change is made so late,” Kilby said about his inau-gural campaign. “I didn’t get here until June. My first day meeting all of the kids was the first day of two-a-days, so we were really behind the other teams on our schedule.”

“Our kids gave a good effort all year, but we went up against some big-time programs that had their tradition and their sys-tems in place. It put us squarely behind the eight ball.”

The Lions picked up two wins in their first three games last year, beating La Grange 34-9 and Austin Travis 57-24. Their non-district losses

came against a 3A Bellville team (21-6) that went on to win 10 games and 4A Dripping Springs (41-26), who went three rounds deep into the playoffs.

Lockhart bogged down when they got to league play. The Lions failed to win a district game and were outscored by a total of 191-46.

“We came up against a lot better defenses,” Kilby explained. “We just didn’t progress the way we had hoped to.”

With a full offseason program under their belts, Kilby said he and his staff are looking forward to much-improved results over last season.

“We’re extremely ex-cited about our kids,” he said. “The effort they’ve given in the offseason and the buy-in has been such a great thing.”

“Our kids have excep-tional attitudes and we’re going to really battle people this year. I believe in these kids 100 percent and I know they’re going to really get after some people.”

The Lions have 17 let-termen back from last season with the majority of their returning starters

playing on offense.The backfield is high-

lighted by FB Levi Mair and HB Marcos Rodri-guez. Mair ran for 625 yards and 7 TD in 2011, despite playing in only eight games. Rodriguez contributed with 619 rushing and 8 TDs, in addition to catching 263 yards worth of passes for two more scores.

“They should be a real good one-two punch,” said Kilby.

The strength of the Lockhart offense, which will operate primarily out of the Slot T formation, will be its senior-laden offensive line which in-cludes Ray Sedwick, Ryne Lehman, Tanner Brown and Aaron Moncevaiz.

While the offense suf-fered from inconsistent play most of last season, the defense was extremely sound for the most part.

“We had a pretty tough defense last year, but a lot of those kids were seniors who’ve graduated,” Kilby said. “Linebackers Bran-don Miller and Mair are the only two returning starters, but we we’re real-ly excited about the young blood we have on defense. We really feel that like

they’re going to rise to the challenge.”

Among the new starters on the defensive side of the ball are Curtis Hawkins, Rhett Crawford, Zeth Garcia, E.J. Tienda, Trent Till, Tyrell Williams, Zane Schnautz, Corey Cuellar, Jordan Johnson, and C.J. McKinney.

The biennial UIL re-alignment brought some changes to the District 27-4A roster. Gone are New Braunfels Canyon and Smithson Valley, having been replaced by Boerne Champion, Kerrville Tivy and Seguin.

Most pundits have Tivy, Hays, and Alamo Heights picked to finish atop the district standings.

Tivy returns nine starters from a regional finalist team includ-ing the Preseason Dis-trict Offensive MVP QB Parks McNeil, who ac-counted for 48 TDs in 2011. Hays returns 23 lettermen, including the league’s top returning re-ceiver Granger Studdard (639 yards, 6 TDs), and Alamo Heights has a dis-trict-high 38 lettermen coming back, including the Preseason District Defensive MVP LB Nick Uretsky (173 tackles).

“I think that Kerrville Tivy with their return-ers and their tradition have got to be picked first,” he said. “I think Hays is right there as a toss-up with them. After that, you have to throw Alamo Heights in there based on their history. In our hearts, we believe we can get that fourth spot.”

“I think momentum will be critical for us early. Any time you’ve got a program that went 1-9 and 2-8 the last two

years, you’ve got to win sooner or later in or-der for your kids to be-lieve. Our kids are fired up but if we come out

of the gate slow, then they’re going to struggle to believe they can get it turned around. A big start is important.”

Lions looking to make great strides in 2012

Levi Mair Marcos Rodriguez

Brandon Miller Ray Sedwick

Ryen Lehman Tanner Brown

It was a tough year for Prairie Lea’s six-man foot-ball team in 2011.

The Indians went 2-7 and were winless in three district games.

This year, the Indians have been moved down to Division II of six-man football andl welcome back 10 lettermen, three offensive and four defen-sive starters.

Thing are already on the upswing.

The offense will be led by slotback Malik Hawkins, who has a healthy mix of speed and size, and other players to play a role in the scoring points for the Indians are quarterback Josh Wiewe, running back Dante Ruiz, wide receiver Zane Patton, wide receiver Jaksyn Vest and center

Mark Davenport.Ruiz is the team’s lead-

ing tackler on defense, and other key players on that side of the ball are defen-sive end Aaron Garcia, de-fensive end Rene Orosco, defensive end Kenneth Waren, safety Thomas McDonnel and linebacker Mark Mendoza.

In non-district, the Indi-ans will have San Marcos Home School, WILCO, San Antonio Winston, Bastrop Tribe, Lockhart Lighthouse, Crosby Vic-tory and Buckholts.

Prairie Lea will play in District 14-6M Division II and will play Cherokee, Oglesby and Star.

Looking to rebound from a down year in 2011, the Prairie Lea Arrows are gear-ing up for a return to playoff form in 2012.

The Arrows were re-aligned into District 26-1A, but that didn’t get them away from perennial powerhouses Flatonia, Louise and Shiner. One of those teams have reached the regional quarter-finals every year since 2005, including four straight years where one of them went to the state tournament.

Despite the recent success of those programs, Prairie Lea has managed to carve out a niche of their own. The Arrows have qualified for the playoffs seven times since 2002 with their recent trip coming in 2009.

Last year, Prairie Lea fin-ished fourth behind – you guessed it – Shiner, Flatonia and Louise.

“It is a very tough district because most of those teams make it to the regional finals,” said Arrows head coach Te-resa Acklin. “If you look at us and Waelder, we only have varsity teams. There’s no JV or freshmen teams. In our whole high school, there are only 40 or 50 kids, so who-ever comes out is automati-cally on the team.”

Acklin said missing last year’s playoffs was not some-thing they relished in, but it was also nothing that would put a damper on this year’s campaign.

“We have a positive out-

look this year,” she said. “During two-a-days, I told our girls the main thing we were going to work on was teamwork. Every week we go through a different team-work assignment.”

“If you care about the per-son you’re on the court with, then that’s going to carry over beyond the skills on the floor. We’re just working on being a strong family-orient-ed team.”

Prairie Lea has 11 girls on this year’s team and the top returning players are All-District hitters Shelli Hard-away and Nia Rivas.

“Nia and Shelli are my all-around athletes,” Acklin said. “They play all of the sports. They are just so competitive and they will give you every-thing they have when they’re on the court.”

Another key player on this year’s team will be setter Mariah Tahah.

“Mariah plays on the back and front row,” said Acklin. “This year I might have a freshman to help her out, but I still have to get her ac-climated to varsity. It’s hard for a setter because every ball has to go through her hands. Mariah has been getting better every year, so I think she’ll be fine.”

Before the Arrows venture into district play, they will compete in a couple of tour-naments including the Nor-dheim Tournament. Prairie Lea has finished no worse than second in that tourney in the past few years.

“We’ve always done well there so if we don’t, then we

know what we have to work on,” Acklin said.

The rest of District 26-1A is comprised of Ganado, Waelder and Weimar. Acklin said in order for her charges to safely navigate through league play and return to the playoffs, they will have to im-prove their defensive play.

“We’re just going to have to be able to defend against spikes because we’re not that tall,” she explained. “We’re going to have to be able to dig like the dickens.”

“Shelli led the team in blocks last year. She went all along the net playing the front row. When Nia gets in, she does the same thing because they’re the best we have in that regard.”

The season has already started on a positive note for the Arrows because they will have full use of their gym-nasium this year, which has been repaired after a storm blew through last season and caused major damage.

“Last year our gym flood-ed out and we had to play at everybody in district twice,” Acklin said. “It’s going to be nice to play at home. Our new floor is beautiful and we’re so glad to be back in our gym.”

Another added nicety this year for Acklin is for the first time during her 12-year ten-ure she will have an assistant in first-year coach Victoria Ivey.

“It’s like I’ve died and went to heaven,” joked Acklin. “It’s so nice to have someone to share the duties.”

Arrows hoping improved team unity leads to improved record

Lockhart Lions

Prairie Lea Indians

By CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]

By MARK LUBE

[email protected]

Things on the upswingfor revived Prairie Lea

Winning cross country championships has be-come old hat for Lockhart head coach Scott Hippen-steel.

Last season, the Lions brought home their 23rd district title in 24 years led by their own version of the “Big Three” in Nate Moore, Joe Anchondo and Eli Spring.

Moore, who will be run-ning for the University of Texas this season, finished sixth at state in 2011 and ran the fastest steeplechase in America last spring. Anchondo, a Notre Dame signee, was 11 seconds shy of qualifying for the pres-tigious Boston Marathon, and Spring earned a schol-arship to run for the Air Force Academy.

“Those losses are big,”

said Hippensteel. “We’ve got two top guys coming back in Robert Uhr and Nick Avey.”

“Robert finished second in the 800 at state last year and ran a 4:15 in the Con-gress Avenue Mile. Nick is a solid runner who has been looking really good lately. He’s had a great summer.”

The dynamic duo will serve as the catalysts for team that also includes se-niors Joseph Hefner, Xavier Espinosa, Colton Russell, JD Amaya and Baris Field.

Hippensteel, who is entering his 25th year at Lockhart, said there is no secret to the program’s tre-mendous success.

“I’ve been lucky to have the right kind of kids,” he said. “As far as our train-ing goes, it’s pretty sim-ple. You just run and do it consistently.”

“High school is about

the development of the athlete and that’s just what we’re doing. I make the schedule based on what kind of talent I think we have. This year we’re going to be moder-ate to above average and I think the schedule re-flects that.”

Hippensteel is hoping this year’s team develops quickly because he ex-pects their district title to be threatened by Boerne Champion, who was re-aligned into District 27-4A.

Champion returns three runners from last year’s state champion team that placed seven of the meet’s top 40 runners.

“They’re tremendous, they’re really good,” said Hippensteel. “We’re go-ing to do our best against them. We’re just going to work hard and see how it all shakes out.”

Key losses, new district leave Lions cross-country facing an uphill climbBy CEDRIC IGLEHART

[email protected]


Cross Country Preview: District-by-District

830.672.3803 • saws.org • 210.704.7297

Good Luck Students,

Have a Great School Year!

District 26-3ATeams: Cuero, Giddings,

Gonzales, La Grange, Smith-ville Yoakum

2011 District champions: Boys - Giddings (23-3A). Girls - Smithville (23-3A)

CueroBoys. Top returner: Jordan

Verner.Girls. Top returners: Alexan-

dra Villafranca, Luzy Flipse.GiddingsBoys 2011 district finish: 1st.

Key losses: Erik Gaitan, Kyle Holman. Top returners: Riley Zoch, Jose Martinez, Blake De-voll, Alan Limon and Steven Vaclavik.

The Buffaloes were strong last season and finished 10th at the UIL State Meet. Zoch and Martinez both finished in the Top 50 and will return for their senior seasons. Devoll, Limon and Vaclavik also showed well at state with Vaclavik finishing in 80th place as a freshman.

Girls 2011 district finish: 3rd. Top returners: Kristina Kanevsky, Kacey Campos, Mikayla Schatte, Ashley Stein-bach.

GonzalesBoys 2011 district finish: 6th.

Key losses: Michael Guerrero. Top returners: Eduardo Ruval-caba, Tyler Janota.

Girls 2011 district finish: 4th. Key losses: Kim Deleon, Brittney Pakebuch. Top return-ers: Contessa Baird, Alejandra Diaz, Hailey Whitted, Kaitlyn Guerra, Dora Rodriguez.

La GrangeBoys 2011 district finish: 5th.

Key losses: Caleb Grimes, Con-nor Pieratt, Anthony Pechal. Top returners: Jordon Fischer, Avery Behrens, Caleb Parks.

Girls 2011 district finish: 4th. Top returner: Katrin Stinner,

Blair Gillard, Kenzie Walker.SmithvilleBoys 2011 district finish: 6th.

Key losses: Caleb Cowan. Top returner: Lorenzo Maldonado.

Girls 2011 district finish: 1st. Top returners: Taylor Haworth, Rachael Davee, Macy Wil-helm, Ashley Cardwell, Abbie Hewitt, MaCaylee DeLeon, Taylor Shackelford.

Haworth, Davee and Wil-helm finished 2-3-4 at the district meet. Shackelford and Hewitt are just sophomores.

YoakumGirls 2011 district finish:

2nd. Key losses: Courtney Carroll, Stephanie Kornegay. Top returners: Brittany Rosas, Parker Janssen, Harley Braun, Hannah Bordovsky, Ruby Cor-rea, Ana Cabello.

District 28-2ATeams: Hallettsville, Karnes

City, Luling, Nixon-Smiley, Poth, Schulenburg, Stockdale

2011 District champions: Boys - Luling (29-2A). Girls - Luling (29-2A)

HallettsvilleBoys 2011 district finish:

5th. Top returner: Logan Her-rington

Girls 2011 district finish: 5th. Top returner: Shelby Boz-ka.

Karnes CityBoys. Key losses: Miguel Pe-

rales. Top returners: Chris To-bar, Jeremy Coronado, Robert Morin, Angel May, Rodney Foreman.

Girls. Key losses: Darian Ramirez. Top returners: Kris-tina Sauceda, Clara Gotthardt, Courtney Garcez, Seandae Goodhue, Desiree Ramirez, Madelyn Walter.

LulingBoys 2011 district finish:

1st. Key losses: Michael Bar-nett, Arturo Rodriquez. Top returners: Jose Campos, Brian Guerrero, Fabian Guerrero, Danny Castillo, Will Frazier.

The Eagles are the defend-ing state champions and were led by Barnett’s second place individual finish. Campos and the Guerreros also ran well and turned in Top 20 finishes at state.

Girls 2011 district finish: 1st. Key losses: Maira Salinas, Adriana Morales. Top return-ers: Carley Glass, Kristaly Mu-noz, Hanna Clark, Maria Cas-tillo, Larissa Carmona.

Glass won an individual state title and led the Lady Eagles to a fifth place team finish. Munoz is also a capable runner, who finished seventh at regionals.

Nixon-SmileyBoys. Key losses: Balti Tovar,

Robbie Mejia.PothBoys. Key losses: Aaron

Freisenhahn. Top returners: Dylan Sefcik, Spencer Flieller, Sherman Evans, Thomas Ro-driguez.

Girls. Key losses: Whitney Lynch. Top returners: Justine Quintanilla, Devon Dylla, Keeley McKinney.

SchulenburgBoys 2011 district finish:

4th. Top returner: Wade Dil-lenbeck.

Girls 2011 district finish: 4th. Top returner: Kaitlyn Bennett.

StockdaleBoys. Top returners: Perry

Bone, Ethan Chavez, Frank Flores.

Girls. Top returners: Sarah Holguin, Samantha Jones, Haley Wallace.

District 28-1ATeams: Falls City, Flatonia,

Ganado, Kenedy, Louise, Pet-tus, Shiner, Three Rivers, Wei-mar, Yorktown.

Falls CityGirls. Key losses: Emily Wi-

atrek. Top returners: Taylor Dzuik, Katie Pollok, Kayla Ko-tara, Shaw Moy.

FlatoniaBoys. Top returner: Zachary

Kalina.Girls. Top returners: Sherie

Vrana, Hilary Koncaba.GanadoBoys. Key losses: Xavier

Salazar, Johnathan Shreck-engost. Top returners: Tay-lor Thedford, Austin Alford, Zachary Andel, Braydan An-del.

Girls. Top returner: Ashley Bridges.

LouiseBoys. Key losses: J.R. Perez.

Top returner: Jacob Seabolt, William Siemens.

Girls. Key losses: Melanie Mamerow. Top returners: Katelyn Roads, Rae Anna Ap-pling, Victoria Siemens, Gin-ny Puentes, Maria Perez.

PettusGirls. Key losses: Savan-

nah Delbosque, Chloe Garza, Celeste Sims. Top return-ers: Madeline Garza, Tristan Moore, Randi Arrisola, Anna Elder.

ShinerGirls. Key losses: Cassie

Stafford, Jordan Pietsch. Top returners: Meloni Berger, Tabitha Blaschke, Shanan Pardy, Destiny Chumchal, Kaci Jamison.

Three RiversGirls. Key losses: Meagan

Cruz.WeimarBoys 2011 district finish:

5th. Top returners: Tomas Moreno, Trey Davila.

Girls 2011 district finish: 3rd. Key losses: Jocelyn Per-ez. Top returners: McKenna Munsch, Cassidy Rodriguez, Emily Oertli, Amethyst Cos-son, Shelby Wunderlich, Elena Perez.

District 32-1ATeams: Austwell-Tivoli,

Corpus Christi College Prep, Corpus Christi London, Moulton, Nordheim, Prai-rie Lea, San Isidro, San Per-lita, Tilden McMullen County, Waelder

MoultonBoys 2011 district finish: 1st.

Key losses: Ty Ramos, Jamie Moreno. Top returners: Alex Reyes, Dennis Lopez, Dal-las Rothbauer, Mario Pinedo, Cameron Jalufka.

Reyes is the defending Class 1A state champion and he led the Bobkats to a fourth place team finish last year. Lopez is one to watch after garnering a Top 20 finish at state as a freshman.

Girls 2011 district finish: 1st. Key losses: Brandee Dolezal, Chelsey Darilek, Tasha Zidek. Top returners: Paige Bartos, Kendall Kristynik, Megan Mi-tchon, Laramie Zant.

The Bobkittenz had a strong showing at the District 32-1A Meet in 2011, where Bartos took third and Mitchon was fifth.

WaedlerBoys. Key losses: Antonio

Castillo. Top returners: Clay Orona, Arthur Aguilar, Alder Sanchez, Joseph McCook, Jer-emy Gonzales.

The Wildcats advanced to the Region IV Meet in 2011 as a team, where Orona placed fifth. He went on to finish ninth at state.

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