Injuries force change of strategy in Mustangs’ win

NIXON — Despite some early miscues, the Nixon-Smiley Mustangs were able to get back on track, winning the turnover battle, ultimately beating Three Rivers at home 30-14.

Penalized nine times during their bout, the Mustangs’ offensive drives stalled early on. But eventually, Colby Newman and Daniel Rodriguez found their ways to the end zone in the two-touchdown win.

“[Newman] played really well as did the offense,” Nixon-Smiley head coach Carlton McKinney said. “It’s a much-improved performance from the first game, which was expected. I think the kids are finally figuring out they can play at this level, some kids that hadn’t played at this level before. Then when you have kids returning, experienced kids like Colby and Devin [Hester] and Daniel and those kids, all they need is a little daylight and they were able to make some plays tonight. We’re going to have to ride those guys.”

Newman made big plays for the Mustangs, scoring on a rushes of three yards, 57 yards and 10 yards. He had a 52-yard touchdown run called back in the second quarter due to an illegal block from the back. The quarterback would end his night with 16 runs for 180 yards and three touchdowns.

Late in the second quarter, after scoring a touchdown to go up 24-6 with 51 seconds left in the half, Rodriguez snagged an interception on Three Rivers’ first offensive play, to give the Mustangs the ball on their own 47-yard line, with now 37 seconds left. Newman then connected with Rodriguez on a 57-yard catch-and-run, as the senior back stretched out over the goal line while being tackled to get the touchdown. Rodriguez finished the night with two catches for 50 yards.

Despite being up 30-6 at the half, McKinney and the coaching staff had to switch their defensive look in the second half due to an ejection as well as some injuries.

“Losing Devon [Lopez] hurt us and [losing] Dominic [Ramos] hurt us,” he said. “We’re operating with 18 kids right now. If you take [out] two or three of our top skill kids, then we have to maneuver. What we did was went back to the defense that we played last year and it helped.”

The Mustangs came into the season with a switch to a 4-3 defense, but had to switch to five linemen due to the injuries.

“It worked because it took [Three Rivers] awhile to figure out what we were doing,” McKinney said, “but we’re hoping in the future that wouldn’t be a problem and we’d have to do this again.”

Nixon-Smiley’s defense gave up their only score of the night late in the game, but overall played well even with the injuries. When asked on whether McKinney anticipated calling up junior varsity kids to fill the void, the head coach explained that this upcoming game against Hallettsville Sacred Heart will be a bit difference since the Indians do not have a JV team.

“Hopefully we get some of these kids back,” McKinney said. “Hopefully Dominic will be fine, I know Elix Carillo is coming back this next week. If we can get about 20 [players] then we’ll be good to go. At least we’ll have some backups in some positions and, again, just keep our fingers crossed that we can stay healthy.”