Apaches offense limited as they drop to second after loss

GONZALES — Friday night’s bout between the Apaches and the La Vernia Bears was a game for the old-school football fans as Gonzales dropped their first district loss to the preseason favorites, losing 17-0.

The Bears offense held on to the ball for most of the night with their rushing attack as they gained 16 first downs off of 292 yards rushing on 50 attempts. La Vernia attempted just four passes, competing one for 10 yards. They held on to the ball for a total of 30 minutes, 17 seconds of game clock, or 63.1 percent of the game, including an opening drive that lasted 10:46.

“That takes us back to 1995, that type of drive,” Apaches’ head coach Kodi Crane said. “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. They didn’t hit big plays, we played physical and we thought we had them stopped on fourth down.”

La Vernia’s 23-play drive ended on a 24-yard field goal.

Meanwhile, the Apaches offense were unable to get things going. Where La Vernia had first down after first down in their first drive, Gonzales mustered just four first downs all night.

Simply put, La Vernia’s star linebackers Matthew Montgomery and Koby Bullard wrecked havoc in the backfield as they rarely allowed any big runs.

“Those two linebackers are good football players, without a doubt,” Crane said. “[La Vernia is] big up front and they just pinned their ears back and went. We had some seams but those linebackers closed them down awful quick.”

Gonzales’ biggest play on the ground was an eight-yard rush on their final drive of the night by quarterback Tyler Hendershot. Their biggest play over the air was a pass from Hendershot to Aaron Hunt for nine yards.

On defense, although the Apaches gave up that 23-play drive, La Vernia would go three-and-out the next three series, before the Bears missed a 50-yard field goal late to end the half still up 3-0 against Gonzales.

“I think we had a roster full of kids that played with their guts,” Crane said of his team not allowing more than 17 points that night. “[They] just put their guts on the line every playing. I thought it was really good of our kids, they competed every single snap and got after it. [La Vernia is] a good football team.”

Near the end of the third, the Bears added seven to the scoreboard with a 43-yard touchdown by La Vernia’s top back Christian Bruce.

“We hit that guy in the backfield and we fell off,” Crane said of the play. “That was probably a little bit of being tired.”

Broken tackles seemed to be a big problem in the second half as the Bears would have rushes of over four years even after getting hit in the backfield.

“Those are big, strong, powerful backs,” Crane explained. “Whenever you make contact with [someone] like that you really got to do a good job of wrapping up and running your feet.”

Bruce is listed at 6-foot, 1-inch tall and 220 pounds.

La Vernia continued their dominance running the ball with their backs as they finished out their final drive of the game going on a 15-play, 68-yard touchdown drive that killed over seven minutes of game clock to go up 17-0, leaving the Apaches with the ball with 3:05 left in the game.

The Apaches would get to the 19, but the clock expired, leaving the Bears with the 17-0 win.

Gonzales now falls to 2-1, tied with Beeville Jones for second in district while the Bears moved to 3-0.

Alyas Ramirez led the team in rushing, getting 19 carries for 70 yards. Hendershot had seven carries for 27.

Hendershot also completed 2-for-12 passing for 12 yards and an interception. Colby Cantu grabbed one for three yards while Aaron Hunt had a nine-yard reception.

To stay in the running for playoff contention, Crane believes his team needs to just keep executing on every snap.

“Just consistency every play, every day, every drive, every snap,” he said. “Every snap is the most important snap until it’s over, then the next one is.”

Friday night the Apaches host Robstown (0-3).