By Barrett Roberson
The Eagles won their homecoming matchup Friday night at Shotwell Stadium 42-20 against the Tascosa Rebels to improve to 2-0 in district play on the season.
“We’re just ecstatic,” head coach Michael Fullen said. “That’s where you want to be. It’s huge for us to be in that situation, knowing that we got a road trip next week up to Amarillo. So, we’re really extremely proud of our coaches and players.”
Despite the big victory, the team had a rocky start to the game. On their first offensive drive, sophomore quarterback Brayden Henry fumbled. The Rebels quickly responded by scoring a touchdown on their second offensive drive to take a 7-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
“You can’t do anything about what just happened,” Fullen said. “You gotta keep moving forward. We made minor adjustments in the game both offensively and defensively that the outside world wouldn’t even realize, but they were big changes in the game. We don’t worry about what happened, you just gotta move on to the next.”
Neither the slow start nor the early fumble affected the players’ confidence in their ability to come home with a win.
“We make mistakes as a team,” senior wide receiver Brelon Badon said. “If we get a penalty or anything, it affects all of us. So we all took that mistake as a team and just thrived through it.”
It was the special teams that turned things around for the Eagles, as junior wide receiver Ryland Bradford returned the kickoff following the Rebels first touchdown for a touchdown of his own.
“All year they didn’t want to kick it to me,” Bradford said. “The first one they kicked me I was kinda nervous. So the second one I was like, ‘yeah, I gotta make them pay.’ So I had to get in the endzone.”
Special teams, the unit in charge of all kicking plays, can determine the outcome of an entire game.
“Anytime you’re winning on special teams, that’s huge,” Fullen said. “Those are hidden plays, hidden numbers, and hidden yardage. I thought we did a great job.”
The special teams continued to shift the momentum to the Eagles sideline by forcing and recovering a Rebels fumble on the following kickoff.
“Momentum is a big factor for us,” Badon said. “I mean, even when we’re down we have just a little bit of a spark, and we keep the train rolling off of that.”
The Eagles play at Amarillo Caprock on Friday as they start their final four games of the season, all district matchups. In their first two dominant district performances, the Eagles outscored their opponents 101-34.
“We’ve challenged them the last two weeks and have been rough in our preparation,” Fullen said. “We’re gonna put hard work in during the week to be able to put the game together and have fun on Friday night.”
