Katy Posts 1st Shutout of Year Downing La Porte

Posted by KT2000 at December 9, 2008

The final INT seals the win for Katy.

Our pitch play is a thing of beauty when it is executed effectively. If some of our inside runs look like Moses parting the Red Sea, then the outside plays resemble the water crashing back down on the Egyptians. It’s like watching one Big Red wave of devastation move around that corner. Awesome! This has become one of the most effective plays this season. It is an example of a play that we could not have run effectively early in the year because of where we started from an execution point of view. Parker Ray has been very effective as a lead blocker on the pitch. Zach Swanson is a destroyer on the edge. Coach Dowling rewound one of Will Jeffery’s scoring plays a few times because Swanson could be seen throwing his man into the first down marker on the sideline to spring the run.

The coaches were happy to have Cameron Travis back this week. We are doing better than most in the health department at this time of year. I thought the passing game was improved over the Dickinson game. Ray was much more accurate. Coach Dowling highlighted a superb corner route he delivered to Brandt. We only attempted 10 passes overall because the running game was doing so well. This will be more important against a team as disciplined as Smithson Valley. It is funny watching how Will Jeffrey’s speed surprises people. It is evident on film. We throw Webber at them to pound away and then bring in this scat back and all defenders can do is watch as he runs by them. He is hard to find behind the big linemen we have. It reminds me of when we had Jamel Branch running the ball.

Defensively, Coach Miller highlighted some of the adjustments the players made to cut off running lanes for La Porte’s big tailback. They used some new formations against us and we appeared to adjust well over the course of the game. Their quarterback and receiver (#80) played good football games in my opinion. They were able to hit us on the third down plays and that’s always aggravating. However, they ended up with a goose egg on the scoreboard at the end of the day. DE Nick Narcisse earned Mr. Defense honors and his effort stood out on film. It is rare to have a defensive end with the kind of range he has to chase down plays. I am always impressed with the number of players who make things happen each week on defense. We have guys step up in each unit to help keep people bottled up. It was nice to have Van Atwood back, and he showed his value on a key pass break up and interception. His experience is certainly a bonus in the secondary. Film also showed that La Porte was very adept at the wrestling take down variety of blocking. Their line play was better than I anticipated, but we were obviously too strong in the end.

We didn’t have any gross errors in the kicking game other than getting out of our lanes on kick off coverage. We had guys all running to the ball and not playing their lanes on the returns when they gashed us a little bit. Coach Miller complimented Joey Killion for doing well after Raul had to come out.

Overall, this was another good effort. We are winning impressively and there is still room to improve. Normally, teams have peaked and start to maybe plateau/trail off a bit this deep into a season. I feel like we are still rising. I haven’t seen a peak performance yet from this Katy team and I’m hoping we are saving that up for these last two games.