Gonzales faces La Vernia in battle of unblemished district records

GONZALES — Last year the game against the La Vernia Bears ended up being an important one as it revealed who the eventual district champion (and runner-up) would be. Tonight may be just as crucial as both teams exhibit the only 2-0 records in District 15-4A DII. For the Gonzales Apaches, head coach Kodi Crane wants nothing more than to take this opportunity to be one step further towards a title.

“[This game is] huge,” Crane said. “Winning this game doesn’t give us a district championship [but] it gives us an opportunity to finish it out for a district championship.”

Both teams have had similar non-district seasons, with the Bears starting off with a 1-4 record while the Apaches were held winless. But both teams are firing on all cylinders and are currently on top of the standings.

“They’ve played some really good football teams,” Crane mentioned. “It took them awhile to find themselves, very similar to us. But whenever they did, they’re hitting on all cylinders, they have some really good football players. They are an extremely big team, they’re extremely fast and extremely physical. They’re hitting on all cylinders right now and playing very well.”

The Bears are currently under a new regime with Brandon Layne taking over as athletic director and head football coach. New coach means new schemes, so the Apaches have been preparing themselves against a La Vernia offense who likes to run.

La Vernia will have three backs getting carries, with senior #10 Christian Bruce considered a top back for the Bears. Although last week he was out with an injury, the Bears still had some success with junior back Wyatt Cowsert (#11) and senior back #22 Reagan Tucker.

Lining up under center is sophomore quarterback Garrett Spencer, donning the #14 jersey, with senior wide out #17 Noah Wells as his best receiver and tight end #84 Tyler Reinhard as another big target for the young ball slinger.

One of the biggest keys the Apaches need to worry about is their defensive alignment.

“We got to be aligned right with proper techniques,” Crane said.

This is especially important because the Bears will line up in various formations, or as Crane puts it, “every formation underneath the sun, anything you can think of they’ll be in it.”

Although they’ll tend to run a lot more than pass, Spencer is accurate on short to medium-length throws, so the defense will have to keep an eye out for that.

“They’ll run a lot of toss, a lot of counter trap, dives off of all that,” Crane scouted. “Everything starts from the toss, that’s what they want to do is run from the toss and everything comes off from that.”

As for defense, under newly named defensive coordinator Chris Taylor, the Bears will have a similar philosophy since Taylor is a coach that was retained from the previous regime, but just with some added twists.

“Last year they were in a four-man front,” Crane said. “They still run it a little bit but kind of evolved to a three-man front.”

As far as alignments go, the Bears are a man-coverage type of defense and because the Apaches are very much a team that also wants to run the ball, La Vernia may come out and try to play man-to-man all the way and load up the box to stop Gonzales’ run.

Their best defensive unit is the linebacker corps led by seniors #28 Koby Bullard and #44 Matthew Montgomery.

If you recognize the name Montgomery it’s probably because he’s been picked by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine as the district’s defensive MVP.

“He has a great motor and he plays extremely hard,” Crane said of the senior. “Their linebacker corps is the best part of their defense.”

An interesting part of the Bears football team in general is the fact that many of their players tend to play just one side of the football. Although every team has top players generally play just one side, La Vernia has talent and enough bodies on the team to do this more often than not.

For a team like the Apaches who pride themselves on wearing out opponents, this task may seem tough against players who play roughly half the snaps Gonzales may.

“Obviously from the outside looking in, you’d think they’d be more fresh,” Crane said, “so how do we wear them out? We wear them out by being more physical.”

Physicality is something the Apaches have been preaching for a couple weeks now and so far it’s proven to work in their two wins.

New coach, more one-side players and a district title possible on the line, tonight will have it all. The Apaches hope their physicality will be enough to stay on top of the standings in district.

Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Apache Field.