By Connor Mullins
After beating the Haltom Buffalos 35-18 last Friday night at Shotwell Stadium, the Abilene High Eagles (3-5 overall, 2-2 in district) take on the Weatherford Kangaroos (5-2 overall, 1-2 in district) this Friday at Weatherford Stadium.
The Eagles currently sit in a three-way tie for second place in District 3-6A with San Angelo Central (4-4 overall, 2-2 in district) and the Richland Rebels (2-5, 2-1 in district), who the Eagles have lost to. The top four teams in district make the playoffs and if the Eagles can defeat the Kangaroos, they increase their chances of making the playoffs.
“We’re taking it one game at a time,” Eagles head coach Michael Fullen said. “We just got to execute on defense.”
The Kangaroos lost to the Euless Trinity Trojans last Friday 41-20. Many major recruiting services, including Dave Campbell’s, rate Kangaroos quarterback Ken Seals a three-star recruit. A dozen division one schools offered Seals, but he committed to Vanderbilt. He is second in district in passing yards with 1916 passing yards, 23 TD’s and five interceptions. He’s coming off his worst passing performance of the season against the Trojans going 22 of 33 for 238 yards, two passing TD’s and two interceptions.
“They’re good,” Fullen said. “They have a good quarterback and running back and they play good defense. They control the ball on offense and we got to keep them off the field. [I expect them to] throw the ball a lot and they can run it well. Our team is practicing hard to prepare for them.”
The Eagles defense is coming off a performance in which they gained 78 tackles, five sacks, one fumble recovery, five deflected passes, and held a Buffaloes offense averaging 381 total yards of offense per game to just 293 total yards of offense.
“[We have to work on] consistency,” Fullen said. “We had good practice last week and they’re practicing well this week. We gotta pour everything into each game.”
Eagles running back Esai Jacques, senior, gained two rushing touchdowns last Friday against the Buffaloes. Jacques, coming off an ankle sprain injury that kept him out for two weeks, hopes to build off his performance.
“I’m very relieved [to get the opportunity] because of my ankle sprain and being out for two weeks,” Jacques said. “It clicked because coach Fullen said if we want to play more games then we’re going to have to win and give it our all. We want to make something happen for this team because we got a lot of talent to do something special. We just can’t let it [the talent] go to waste.”
The Eagles gained early momentum and played consistently last Friday and put together an impressive performance, coach Fullen is hoping for more of the same against the Kangaroos.
“I want everybody to have a breakout game like they did last Friday,” Fullen said. “It’s one game at a time now and we got to play well on the road.”
Here’s a link to Ken Seals Dave Campbell’s profile!
https://www.texasfootball.com/recruiting/players/ken-seals.98a3ab7c?ref=rankings_list
