Westlake eliminates Los Fresnos from playoffs

BY ROY HESS
The Brownsville Herald

VICTORIA — December 3, 2006 — Los Fresnos’ memorable football season with a school-record 12 wins and the Falcons’ first district championship at the Class 5A level is over.

The Falcons (12-1) became the last Rio Grande Valley team to exit the state playoffs with a 45-19 loss to Austin Westlake on Saturday afternoon at Victoria Memorial Stadium in the 5A Division I regional round.

Westlake’s powerful offense, led by quarterback Nick Foles, was too much for the Falcons. The District 25-5A third-place Chaparrals (10-2) scored on their first four possessions of the opening half and built a 31-0 lead midway through the third quarter. It was the first time all season that Los Fresnos was held scoreless at halftime.

Foles, who has committed to play for Arizona State, was almost perfect on the day, completing 17-of-20 passes for 302 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions.

“Our offense was clicking,” Foles said. “I could tell that they (Falcons) had a lot of heart and that they weren’t ever going to give up, and they didn’t. Los Fresnos has a great team, but we were clicking pretty good today.

“I thought I did good, but a big part of it was the blocking of our line and the receivers making plays,” he added.

Westlake now moves on to the state quarterfinals and will face San Antonio Reagan, a 72-48 winner over Laredo United on Saturday.

“You just can’t spot Westlake that many points,” Los Fresnos coach Scott Ford said. “We knew we had to play basically a perfect game, and it got out of hand early.

“When you get in that situation, you’re climbing uphill every time you have the ball and you have to try to do some things that you would not normally do by taking some chances,” he added. “But you do them because you’re playing to win, and that’s what we were doing. It just didn’t work out.”

District 32-5A champion Los Fresnos was attempting to become only the fourth Valley team to reach the fourth round of the 5A state playoffs. The last team to do it was Edinburg High in 1999.

As he has done all season, quarterback Jeremy Springer once again tried to carry the Falcons. This time, there was too much of a deficit to overcome.

Still, Springer finished with 144 yards rushing on 22 carries with a touchdown and completed 18-of-42 passes for 313 yards and a pair of scores. He was intercepted twice in the first half.

The TD passes, for 24 and 7 yards, both went to Jorge Mata.

“Yeah, we accomplished a lot this season, but that’s because all these guys (teammates) came during the offseason and worked their tails off,” Springer said. “I love every single one of them and each one of these coaches.

“I take a lot of the blame for this game today,” he added. “We needed to come up big and we didn’t, and that’s my fault.”

In the first half, Foles completed 10 of his first 11 passes and threw touchdown passes to tight end Stephen Shaffer (4 yards), running back Max Minor (13 yards) and wide receiver Andy Spears (65 yards). Bron Hager scored on a 28-yard run on Westlake’s third possession before Spears made it 28-0 with his TD catch.

The Falcons reached the Westlake 10-yard line twice in the second quarter but came away with no points. Pablo Degollado’s 27-yard field-goal attempt sailed wide right and then Springer suffered his second interception just before halftime.

Westlake’s Justin Tucker, who made all of his extra-point attempts, nailed a 36-yard field goal with 7:28 showing in the third quarter for a 31-0 lead.

The Falcons scored their first TD on a late third-period march in which Springer rushed seven times for 75 of the 76 yards on the eight-play drive. His 1-yard plunge into the end zone with 3.57 left in the period cut it to 31-7 after Degollado’s kick.

Los Fresnos scored again on its next possession as Springer threw a 24-yard TD pass to Mata to narrow the lead to 31-13. The Chaparrals quickly increased their lead to a more comfortable margin as Foles threw fourth-quarter TD passes of 8 yards to Shaffer and 34 yards to Spears.

With 30 seconds remaining, Mata caught a 7-yard TD pass from Springer to account for the final 45-19 score.

While Mata caught two TD passes and finished with six receptions for 83 yards, teammate Esia Rivera was the Falcons’ top receiver with nine catches for 188 yards.

Hager and Minor had 81 and 56 yards rushing, respectively, for the Chaparrals.

Both teams came into the contest averaging well over 400 yards a game on offense. Los Fresnos rushed for 167 yards and passed for 313 on Saturday for 480 total yards. Westlake finished with 399 total yards — 86 rushing and 313 passing.

“We took advantage of some good plays and some good throws by Nick,” Westlake coach Derek Long said. “But you always feel that you can never rest until it’s over. Los Fresnos’ offense is real potent, and I was cringing there about the last two or three minutes (when the Falcons scored their last touchdown).”

rhess@brownsvilleherald.com

Posted on Dec 02, 06 | 12:01 am