Alamo Heights 43 San Marcos 7 October 2, 2014

Mules Make Road Kill of San Marcos Rattlers on the Road with 43-7 Win

            -Take Handy Two Game Win Streak into Homecoming

By Bob Cohen, Senior Mule Fan Editor-In-Cheap

            (San Marcos)—The short week proved no obstacle in the Mules approach to an important district game with the San Marcos Rattlers on Thursday night at Texas State’s Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos as the Mules drilled the Rattlers 43-7 at the halfway mark of the District 27-5A schedule.  A smothering Alamo Heights defense coupled with superb special teams play led the Rattler hunt.

All photos courtesy of Mary Candee
www.dulcedesigns.photreflect.com

            Once again the Mules defense was called on to stop a potent running attack with key stops to limit big play damage.  It chased Rattler quarterback David Hamilton from one side of the field to the other. With the exception of one stunning third quarter touchdown run of 68 yards, Hamilton’s impact was blunted in spite of a 182 yard rushing night.  He was limited to only five of 15 passing for only 17 yards and couldn’t shake Mules X-Ray vision equipped defensive back Mitchell Abramson who picked off a Hamilton pass in the second quarter, stepping in front of the only receiver Hamilton had time to look at, then put a nice move on Hamilton and finished off a 69 yard “pick six” for the Mules’ second score of the night. 

Adding to the Rattler’s misery was the superb performance of the special teams with safety/kicker Cameron Dawley in the lead role.  If you like watching great punts, you were asking for a curtain call on Thursday as Dawley banged out four for a 50 yard average. (By the way, backup Dakota Brokaw also had a great punt late in the game.)  When he wasn’t playing great defense and mortaring San Marcos with his punts, he ran in a low snap on a point after attempt and knocked in five other extra point boots.  It’s a good thing his name isn’t either hard to pronounce or spell.  And, oh yeah, almost forgot that Dawley picked off a San Marcos pass in the 2^nd quarter as well.  (I’m catching a whiff of a certain nice tasting canned meat.)

The Mules offense put together a methodical and business-like evening and had to overcome some untimely penalties in the process.  But in the end, it rolled up 371 total yards balanced between running and passing.  Ground game scores from Banks, and the quickly maturing young backfield of Deryl Reynolds and Brendon McClinton.  Reynolds carried eight times for 47 yards and a 19-yard touchdown scamper on an option pitch around left end.  He also tacked on 51 receiving yards on five catches.  McClinton carried 13 times for 53 yards and a nice one yard TD through a hole in the middle of the offensive line in the third period. 

All photos courtesy of Mary Candee
www.dulcedesigns.photreflect.com

The Mules scored through the air twice and one additional TD pass reception called back for a penalty.  The Dalton Banks-Greer Shetler combination was the point producer through the air.  Shetler scored from 14 and 25 yards and had a nice 80 yard striked called back on the first possession.  Banks finished 17 for 32 and 189 yards to go along with the two touchdown passes and one 28 yard rushing TD.  The rushing TD was a beaute as Banks rolled right on a option read, saw the defense was going to take Deryl  Reynolds on the pitch, cut up inside and sliced his way through the secondary for the pay station.

The Mules (4-2, 3-1 district) will now come home for a Homecoming game against Seguin on Friday October 10 at Harry B. Orem Stadium.  Homecoming week is always exciting for the community and a two game winning streak will help. 

"His Inside Voice"

A weekly conversation with Mules Head Coach Mike Norment

Mule Fan:  The scoreboard tells part of the story with the win on Thursday.  The Mules defense played lights out holding San Marcos to seven points, the offense grinded a bit in the first half but came around and special teams played a big role. It seemed like the three phases of the game in end were balanced. How did you see it looking back?

Coach Norment:  Special teams did great.  We kicked off very well, got all of our extra points, and we changed field position tremendously with our punting.  Defense really did play “lights out”.  They gave up a couple of big plays to a quarterback who can run.  Offensively at times we looked very good and other times we struggled.  Overall it was a great game.  It was a short week.  We really only had two days to practice with the Thursday game.  Overall I was pleased. There are definitely some things we need to continue to get better at and some things I feel very good about also.  I think we’re exactly where we need to be at this time of the season and need to keep on getting better.

Mule Fan: What did you think of your punter’s performance on Thursday?

Coach Norment:  Like I said, he (Cameron Dawley) changed field position several times.  He put them into the hole. Twice he kicked it inside their ten-yard line.  Then we brought in our backup punter (Dakota Brokaw) and he was able to do that same thing.  When you can do that, you put a lot of pressure on the other team.  The fact that they’ve got to go 90 plus yards; percentage-wise that doesn’t happen very often. 

Mule Fan:  Once again you faced a great athlete and running quarterback in David Hamilton who performed as advertised getting 182 yards.  But what was the approach to keep him from doing any real scoring damage?

Coach Norment:  Well we preached gang tackling all week and also trying to funnel him back inside where we had more players. That was the key.  We tried to not allow him to get to the outside because if he gets to the outside untouched he’s dangerous.  So we tried to keep him inside, stay in our lanes, gang tackle and get a hand on him. 

Mule Fan:  You had a long touchdown called back and a pass dropped in the end zone.  As we said earlier, it felt like the offense was grinding a bit yet when you looked up at the scoreboard at halftime, there were 22 points on the board.  Some of that was defense of course.  And at the end there were 43 points on the board.  So how did you see the offensive production and where are you at this point in the season?

Coach Norment:  After the Boerne Champion game we realized we needed to make a commitment to run the ball so we’ve changed some of the things we’ve done there in the last two games.  We’ve run the ball a lot more.  Not because we’re just saying that we’re going to do it but because that’s also what the defense has been giving us.  San Marcos was dropping six, seven and one time eight or nine into coverage.  So we have to be able to run the ball in those cases.  So we need to continue to run the ball and at the same time we can’t have the mental errors that we had in this game like the drop and the touchdown called back because those are two scoring opportunities that you don’t know if you’ll get back again.  One time we were able to overcome and another time we weren’t.  So just because of that we have to continue to get better and that includes the mental aspect.

Mule Fan:  You had a Friday night free last week and we don’t often get those.  Something tells me you weren’t home watching a movie.

Coach Norment:  All the coaches basically went someplace.  We scouted three different games.  We saw Seguin and Memorial since those are our next two opponents.  We saw Tivy-Champion and Floresville-Lockhart.  We just wanted to get a feel for what we are going to see the next few weeks.

Mule Fan:  You said before that seeing the game live gives you chances to see things you can’t on film.  Remind us about what you’re looking at.

Coach Norment:  You only get to see the play on film or maybe a few seconds before and after.  You can’t see possible players that are hurt and how severely they might be hurt.  You see the atmosphere and things like that which you can’t get from watching film.  We’re also limited to watching the game before we play a team.  The junior high coaches usually go and scout the game before our next one.  So this was good to see some teams a couple of games out from what we’re going to see over the next month or so.

Mule Fan:  Looking to this week with Seguin, what does this homecoming matchup look like for the Mules?

Coach Norment:  They have a new coach.  He’s trying to change the culture. They’re very athletic like always.  They have great athletes and big offensive linemen. They’re going to get after us.  Offensively they’ll look very similar to San Marcos because Coach Boykin was the offensive coordinator at San Marcos.  We’ll have somewhat the same game plan against them.  Defensively they like to blitz so we’ll have to make sure the offensive line is ready to pick up the different looks that we’re going to see and the different blitzes we’re going to see.  Seguin has always given us a good game.  Even if you look at the record some years, they’ve always played us tough.  We’ve never been able to take this game for granted.  It’ll be like that again.  We’ll have to play well against a really good team.

Alamo Heights Players Among Area Leaders

SA Express News Sub-6A rankings still have it 1. Boerne Champion 2. Alamo Heights 3. Kerrville Tivy…Mitchell Abramson sits among a bunch of players in the area with three interceptions.  The leader is by himself with four…Quarterback Dalton Banks ranks fourth in total offense with 1,884 yards and fifth in passing with 1,495 yards with 109 complains in 178 attempts…Zach Ford is the only Mule populating the receptions leaders at #16…Greer Shetler is ninth in receiving yardage.

Seguin Notes: Alamo Heights won last year’s matchup 54-41 at Seguin…the Matadors come in with an overall record of 2-3 with wins against Memorial and San Marcos…Seguin’s leading scorer is junior running back Avion Dora with five touchdowns (three rushing).  He averages just over five yards per carry…the Matadors are averaging 28.8 points per game and allowing 31.2…conversely, the Mules are averaging 39.3 points per game and allowing 20…Seguin has not finished a season over .500 since 2006 when they went 9-2, which was also their last playoff appearance…the Matadors ended the 2013 season with a 3-7 overall record and were winless in district 27-4A play at 0-7…Seguin started the season with 15 returning lettermen; four each on offense and defense.

Cliché’ Corner

‘Cuz lurnin’ stuff makes u more hansom.

Name the football cliché’.

A.     Cover two

B.     Cover Girl

C.     Ground cover

Answer: Cover two-A strong safety and a free safety have deep coverage responsibility freeing up more defenders to cover short routes and the run

District 27-5A Scores

Boerne Champion 42 Kerrville Tivy 33

Lockhart 31 Floresville 17

Seguin 62 Memorial 22

Kennedy Idle

District 27-5A Standings

Boerne Champion  4-0

Alamo Heights  3-1

Lockhart  3-1

Kerrville Tivy  2-1

Seguin  2-1

San Marcos  1-2

Floresville  1-3

Kennedy  0-3

Memorial  0-4

Canned Ham Time  

We kind of gave you a little foreshadowing above. We realize that. But let’s make it official.  Senior safety and kicker Cameron Dawley had himself a game on Thursday.  His punting was breathtaking bashing four punts for over a 50 yard average.  He scored seven extra points himself and also tacked on an interception.  Oh yeah, he contributed to a defensive effort, which yielded 24 yards (not a typo) passing for San Marcos.  The kid did everything but bring a super model onto the team bus and save a kitten.    Congratulations!

Mules on Radio

Sometimes you might not be able to get to the game.  Then there are grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, old girlfriends, and the list goes on of folks who might live out of town and can’t get to the games.  Well the action can come to you in two special ways.  KBUC 92.5 FM is where you hear Alamo Heights Mules football and online anywhere on the planet on www.tsrnsports.com.  Ed Suarez, Dave Parker and Albert Gonzalez will be in full throat this week and every week to cover the action.