Sports

   Van Vleck football team’s greatest strengths this season will be experience and its offensive and defensive lines, Head Coach Robert Blackmon said.
   Van Vleck had 61 players show up for two-a-day practices and Blackmon points out that group includes eight starters from both offense and defense from last year’s team.
   That experience will be tested when the season begins with a scrimmage against Edna there Aug. 20 and the first game will be at Hitchcock Aug. 28.
   “Offensively we will run the spread offense and defensively we will be multiple,” Blackmon explained about the different sets the Leopards will feature.
   Blackmon is counting on a group of leaders this year.
   “Sam Bree, Garrett Chambless, Slade Huerta, Wyatt Gobert will be our leaders,” the coach said.
   “They’re all seniors except for Garrett,” he added.

   A possible solution to the serious structural problems at the city’s Valiant Pool pump room emerged after engineers recently took a look. 
   City Manager Shawn Burkhart called a meeting July 20 with representatives from City Hall, Bay City Aquacats and Wellness Matagorda after the city indicated the pool could be closed because of the pump room issues. 
   After that meeting committed a smaller group to find a solution, engineers with Progressive Aquatics of Conroe, Lynn & Associates and the city parks and recreation staff met at the pool July 22. 
   “We spent the bulk of the time relative to what to do about the critical failing integrity of the pump/chemical room structure,” said City Councilman Bill Cornman, council’s point person on the pool and the proposed aquatics center. 

   Bay City High School football coaches discovered something positive from players during BCHS summer camp. “We’re already on top of this,” said Head Football Coach Robert Jones. 
   “Because of summer camp, we implemented all of our offense and defense schemes,” the new Blackcat head football coach said at the start of two-a-days Monday morning. 
   The first day of practice was held in the new Memorial Stadium and its artificial turf field.  
   Jones said the players were more focused on getting back to football since the pandemic closed schools last spring. 
   Jones thought about starting practices on grass.  
   “Mosquitoes ruled that out,” he added. 
   Jones was asked how it feels to begin his first head coaching job at his Alma meter. 
   “It feels awesome to start out in Bay City,” said Jones, a former Blackcat football player, who finished BCHS in 2000. 

   Bay City ISD trustees looked at changes to the new Memorial Stadium during their regular meeting July 20. 
   “We need to raise the exterior fence all around the stadium,” said BCISD Athletic Director Warren Trahan. 
   “Coach Trahan told me that we had a couple of students and their dog on the field a few days ago,” said Superintendent Dr. Marshall Scott, III. 
   “It’s probably waist high on me right now, but needs to be higher. We need to have a fence that’s at least six feet high all the way around.” 
   “Six or seven and we want to discourage people from climbing the fence,” said Trahan. 

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   The future of the Valiant/16th Street pool will be on city council’s meeting agenda July 28. 
   City Manager Shawna Burkhart convened a meeting Monday that drew out several options and concerns over the pool building’s poor conditions. 
   Burkhart said she called the meeting “to discuss the 16th Street pool moving forward” - to keep it operating, to make structural repairs or to close the facility. 
   The meeting included representatives of the city and BCISD, Bay City Aquacats, Wellness Matagorda and BCHS swim coach – all with different reflections on the pool, swimming and the proposed aquatics center. 
   Steel rebar inside the pool building’s concrete walls and roof is corroding, particularly in the room that houses the pump and pool chemicals. 
   The chemicals accelerate the corrosion, city officials said. 

David Lucio
Head Football Coach
Tidehaven Tigers