Sports

Llano - From the outside looking in, it may have been a bit peculiar for a Wimberley Texan football team to celebrate so gleefully after a victory over Llano – a team they have dominated in recent years.

But after enduring a disappointing season full of near misses, a brutal non-district schedule, key injuries and admittedly - a couple of less than stellar performances – the Texans certainly had the right to celebrate their first win of the 2015 season unashamedly.

Their 24-0 blanking of the Yellow Jackets unleashed a myriad of emotions for the Texans and many of their fan base.

There were selfies, hugs and even a few tears once the final gun sounded at Llano Stadium.

LAFAYETTE, La. — As the University of Louisiana-Lafayette public relations staff saluted a host of recent breast cancer survivors who were now cancer-free and rewarded with new sense of optimism in a poignant pre-game ceremony prior to kickoff — in all actuality — the battle on the field could very well have been billed as a rebirth of sorts for the Texas State defense.

After defensive coordinator John Thompson stepped down from his post a day after a blowout loss in which the Texas State defense was manhandled at Houston two weeks ago, the Bobcats were ready to unveil a defensive unit that had been under wraps for two weeks leading up to Saturday’s matchup with the Ragin Cajuns.

Llano - Hunter Williams rushed for 148 yards and a touchdown to spearhead a solid running game and Davin Masur passed for a pair

of touchdowns as the Texans blanked Llano 24-0 to capture their first win of the 2015 campaign.

Williams, who compiled 99 of his total by halftime had 28 carries on a night in which Wimberley opened district play with their best performance of the season.

“It feels awesome.” Williams said. “To finally slingshot us into what we can be (district champions) just feels amazing. We worked as hard as we have all year this week and we executed our game plan which was to run the ball.”

Wimberley took a tough loss last week against the district-leading Canyon Lake Hawks, but the volleyball team bounced back with an important victory over Yoakum.

The Hawks are undefeated in district place.

“They are a good team, and they have a lot of senior leadership,” Head Coach Thomas Kane said. “We needed to play a little bit more error free. We made too many mistakes. We made some mistakes late, and we’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the ball.”

Wimberley lost in three sets 25-22, 25-21 and 25-20, but Kane does not think the task is too big for the Lady Texans.

SAN ANGELO – A pair of first quarter touchdown passes on consecutive possessions within a three-minute span from the aerial duo of Landon Kimbro and Cole Oxford helped propel Iowa Park to an early advantage and the Hawks held off a late charge to send the Wimberley Texans to their fifth consecutive loss 29-17 in a contest played at San Angelo Stadium on Friday night.

Trailing 13-0, the Texans (0-5) were able to get on the board midway through the second quarter as Hugo Huesca connected on a 31-yard field goal.

But following a safety, Iowa Park’s Bowie Franks scored the first of his two touchdowns from 31 yards out to give the Hawks a commanding 22-3 halftime lead.

Franks also scored on a short 5-yard run as he finished with a game high 155 yards on the ground for the Hawks.

Houston - The Texas State Bobcats might have been competing three hours and a full week away from the scene of their 56-50 shootout loss to Southern Mississippi at home on Sept. 22 but the lingering effects were still pretty evident.

The Houston Cougars' 59-14 runaway win over Texas State in front of 35,257 fans at TDECU Stadium may have exposed much bigger problems than home attendance, inner turmoil and bowl snubs.

Especially on the defensive end where they surrendered a jaw-dropping 689 yards of offense to a speedy University of Houston unit orchestrated by Texas-ex Major Applewhite in his first season as offensive coordinator.

Applewhite’s crew had very little trouble scoring on a Texas State defense in every way imaginable.

St. Michael’s Academy scored 14 unanswered third quarter points to erase an early two touchdown deficit and then held off a late fourth quarter drive to nip the Texans 21-17 on homecoming night in Wimberley.

The loss sent the Texans (0-5) to their second worst start in school history.

The Texans stormed out to an early 14-0 lead as Colby Crowder and Davin Masur both scored on late first quarter touchdown runs.

St. Michael’s soon countered with a touchdown of their own as Connor Gjerset found Gabriel Vondrak with 7:29 left in the half.

Gavin Martinez’s 20-yard field goal extended the Texans advantage to 17-7 with three minutes left in the half.

The Texan cross country team is continuing it’s run towards chasing a district title. Last weekend, 18 of the 21 boys runners improved their times by hitting or beating the target set forth by Head Coach Brad Biggers in Fredericksburg.

“This is always a tough meet for us, with many great state ranked teams racing,” Biggers said. “It’s also a tough and hilly course that challenges the runners.  We were happy with our boys times today especially, as they just keep on getting better week to week as we approach our district meet.  Our girls struggled a little today in their two-mile race.  We will keep on working on hills in our practices and hopefully get tougher as district approaches.  Our training times have been consistently better so we truly hope today’s meet times are an aberration rather than a true indication of where we are.”

Fischer - After nearly a month of travelling south in search of a competitive football game, it turns out all the Wimberley Texans they had to do was travel a few miles down the road to play rival Canyon Lake.

And on homecoming night for the Hawks the two adjacent schools duked it out in a see-saw affair that had enough fireworks to rival a Fourth of July picnic.

When the dust finally settled it was Canyon Lake emerging victorious in the inaugural “Battle of the Backbone” as junior quarterback Ben Fulton passed for three touchdowns in the Hawks’ 28-14 triumph.

It was the only the second win in the eight game series for Canyon Lake for the pair of schools separated by only twenty miles of highway.

The Wimberley High School cross county teams are continuing to impress as the season wears on. For the Texans, Craig Huey led the way with a third place finish.

Huey was in front for almost every bit of the 5K, but was followed the whole race closely by two other runners. At the very end, he was edged out by a few feet. Still, Huey showed a great improvement from his previous race by dropping his time by 40 seconds. 

Another top ten finish from senior Walt Flocke was also key to the Texans getting third place as a team in the large meet, with Liberty Hill and Salado finishing in front of the boys team. Almost every runner on varsity showed improvement in their time from the Dripping Springs Meet two weeks ago.