Sports

   Lupe Florez hopes a two-a-day practice mentality over the past two weeks will help his Bay City Blackcats’ first foray into District 12-4A play this season against 5-0 Stafford Friday night – there, at 1625 Staffordshire. 
   The Spartans share the 12-4A lead with West Columbia, also 5-0, followed by Needville and El Campo, both 3-2, Bay City (2-3) and Brazosport (1-4). 
   “By far the best practices” for the Blackcats this season were over the last two weeks, that included bye week, said Head Coach Florez.  
   “We’ve gotten better every week. We’re going back to the basics – our tempo is better. 
   “We had a lot of fun with the team. We went back to a two-a-day mentality – we’re going to grind, we’re going to work. 
    “Stafford is a good football team,” Florez noted. 
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   Turnovers were huge for us Friday night in our loss to Goliad, 28-6.
   We were down 6-0 with a minute to go before the half and we turn the ball over and Goliad scores right before half to go up 14-0 at halftime.   
   I thought we had good effort, but mental mistakes and big plays cost us the game.   
   Goliad speed was the difference in the game. They made a few big plays in the passing game and they had a 63-yard touchdown run.   
   If we don’t give up those big plays we did a good job on defense.   
   On offense I thought Jeff Williams had a great night running the football.   
   He ran with authority. Even though we lost, without doubt, we are a better team right now than when we started the season.   
   We break up the season into four parts of the year: scrimmages, predistrict, district and playoffs.   

   The Van Vleck High School football team heads into 2015 district games on a losing note at 1-4, but head coach Robert Blackmon has plenty of confidence in the Leopards.  
   “This is a good 1-4 team,” Blackmon said on Monday.  
   “The won-loss column doesn’t reveal that, but this team is capable of beating anybody.” 
   Van Vleck ended its non-district games with a 26-7 loss at Ganado on Sept. 26.  
   The team is set to begin district 13-3A (D2) games by hosting Danbury (2-3) at 7:30 p.m. Friday.    
   “There’s no question that winning changes everyone’s thought processes,” Blackmon said.  
   “If we could have grabbed one more win going into district, I would feel better, but, as I’ve said all along, I still like the team that we have.  
   “This will team compete with anyone in our district. We’ve just had some bad breaks. A lot of it was our doing, so we just have to clean that up and we’ll be okay.”

   It’s bye week for the Bay City Blackcat football team that will have to regroup after its decisive 42-7 defeat by the Bellville Brahmas last Friday night.
   Next up is Stafford, an Oct. 9 game that begins district play. 
Stafford is 4-0 and the Spartans will play St. Pius X this Friday, Oct. 2. 
   Dave Campbell’s Texas Football picked Stafford No. 2 in District 12-4A, after El Campo, now 3-2.
   Against Bellville, the District 12-4A Blackcats (2-3) struggled offensively, gaining 106 yards in the air and 65 yards rushing, for 171 total yards.
   Bellville had 444 total yards – 394 yards rushing – with 24 first downs to Bay City’s seven.
   The Brahmas struck first at Memorial Stadium Friday with a touchdown and PAT and 48 seconds left in the first quarter.
   Bellville added seven more at the 9:11 mark in the second for a 14-0 lead.

   The Tidehaven Tigers came up short vs. the Louise Hornets 39-29.
   We had the ball with three minutes left in the game down by three and was moving down the field for the win but a turnover was returned by Louise for a TD to end the comeback for the Tigers.
   We were down 19-14 at halftime and I thought we came out the second half and did a great job competing, but little mistakes cost us a chance to win.
   On the defense side of the ball, we played well in spots but we gave up a couple of big plays, including a 90-yard touchdown run by Louise.
   Again, we had people in position to make the play but did not make it. 
   On offense, I thought the entire backfield ran hard. It was a very physical clean game between two very good teams.
   It was a game that is going to prepare us for the upcoming district competition.
   We needed a game like this where we had some adversity and it was good to see our kids keep fighting back.