Cypress Bay Review

Here are some of the awards. I’ll have the rest up when I get a digital copy.

Mr. Offense- FB Chris Roberson (good running on Katy draw and good blocking as well)
Mr. Defense- DL Nick Narcisse (very disruptive and blocked a kick for good measure)
Mr. Special Teams- AP Kyle Hirschfelder (great work fielding punts and extra effort on kick coverage)

Coach Dowling said the offense came into the game with the idea of establishing the inside run. We thought Cypress Bay’s speed would be a problem on the edges, and wanted to gash them between the tackles. Ironically, we ended up doing both pretty well. The coaches noted Cypress Bay’s speed, and we were able to get the edge sealed up quite a bit. Coach Dowling pointed out a few plays where we had a lot of green grass around the edge, but our runner cut back or didn’t take a wide enough path outside. The plays we did stay on course with looked pretty good. Webber ran as good as he has all season to this point in my opinion. He was hitting holes and also finishing runs well. That tells me he is getting more confident. Coach Dowling pointed out the great surge we were getting on some of the plays we called for the fullback. It was great to see the Katy draw again.  Cypress Bay had no idea what was happening. Coach Dowling also noted Parker Ray’s improved play, and there was only one I remember that looked like a bad decision on his part and it was still almost completed. It was the play when he was pressured by an LB and passed towards the middle off balance. Of course, that’s generally not recommended, but other than that Parker executed well. Coach Dowling pointed out plays that illustrated how his timing is improving with the receivers. He looks much calmer and assured in the pocket than in the first two games.  The fumbles were obvious negatives, and Coach Dowling stressed ball security as a general rule as well as making sure we come away with points in scoring position.

The defense started aggressive with a nice sack by Elvin “Kabong!” Tapong. They got us outflanked on the sweep a couple times and also on a couple plays to the fullback. Coach Miller paused the film on the one 3rd and long run they had, nearly a first down, and we had a body on the runner at the LOS. It was an arm tackle and the Cypress Bay player did a good job of keeping his balance. We were lucky to not concede there and force the punt. Coach Miller also highlighted good play in the secondary. Van Atwood, Zach Griffin, Ryan Rose and Sam Holl were all active, and they held do the dirty work on the edge to string out their runs. Coach Miller slo-mo’d the first strip we got and it was clearly a fumble. I believe it was LB Cory Matney on the hit. Of course, Coach Miller slo mo’d the Holl interception and return. Holl clearly scored after an incredible effort. I thought that play was indicative of the team as a whole in the game. Confident, determined and hungry. Coach Miller and Coach Joseph praised the team effort on defense.

Coach Joseph and Coach Miller were frustrated with the blocked punt. I think Coach Joseph pointed out we’d only had 2 blocked punts in the last two years, but had two in the last two weeks. He said we obviously can’t have that and the coaches are working with the players to get it fixed. The kick coverage was outstanding. Cypress Bay had very fast players, but they didn’t get much of a chance to use that quickness in the open field because of our team effort. Kyle Hirschfelder’s stop was outstanding. Cypress Bay’s return man was gone if Hershey misses or doesn’t give the effort to cut him off in the first place.

Coach Joseph said he was very pleased with the effort in this game, and I thought he summed things up well by saying the team can be pleased with how they’ve progressed to this point but we can’t be satisfied yet. We’re about to start playing the games that count for real, so it was very nice to see the kind of effort we gave against Cypress Bay as a jump start. Hopefully, that is something the team can continue to manufacture moving forward.