The Wimberley Texan football team clinched their third consecutive district championship with a 34-22 victory over the Lago Vista Vikings.
The win sets the Texans up for the chance to finish the regular season a perfect 10-0 in back to back years with one game remaining.
“Going 10-0 is pretty hard to do – in fact it is really hard to do,” Head Coach Doug Warren said. “To do that back to back, that is pretty special. I don’t know that I’ve ever been involved with a team that has been able to do that.”
Wimberley (9-0, 4-0) was able to take down the Vikings (5--4, 2-2) with a strong first half.
The two teams traded punts out of the gates before quarterback Cody Stoever ran the ball in from 25 yards out to score the first touchdown of the game.
On the ensuing kickoff, Lago Vista set up a strong return and finished off with an 85 yard touchdown. Wimberley quickly responded with a touchdown run from Chase Carson to go up 14-7 at the tail end of the first quarter. Stoever would score another rushing touchdown and throw a touchdown pass to Noah Birdsong to round out the first half at 27-7. Most of the damage in the first half, as well as the game, came from a strong ground attack.
“The quarterback run game can be so tough to defend for a defense because there are so many facets to it,” Warren said. “Cody is such a good runner, and they were giving us a soft box and inviting us to run the football. If somebody is going to invite us to run the football, we are going to take that invitation.”
From a defensive perspective, the game was essentially a shutout at half time with the only touchdown coming on special teams.
“They run an option offense, which we don’t see very often,” Warren said. “You have to be able to be very disciplined… I thought we did a really good job of that in the first half – not so much in the second. But in the first half we did a really good job.”
He highlighted the defensive line of Silas Sames, Troy Heugly and Bryson Young as some of the keys to playing that option offense.
“When somebody is running the option, our defensive line has to take on the dive back, they have to tackle that guy,” Warren said. “If that doesn’t happen then we are behind the eight-ball because the linebacker will have to clean that up… It all starts up front and it always does, so I was pleased with those guys for most of the night.”
Lago Vista came out in the second half with a long touchdown drive, but Wimberley turned around and answered with a touchdown of their own to make it 3414. After the Texans touchdown, the Vikings actually managed to force a safety before scoring one more touchdown at the end of the game making the final score 34-22.
Stoever led the team in passing and rushing. He was 8 for 14 passing for 106 yards and one touchdown. On the ground, he rushed 23 times for 179 yards and three touchdowns. Carson rushed for 31 yards on 7 carries for one touchdown and Owen O’Neal had 17 yards on six carries. Nolan Waida led the team with three receptions and 70 yards while Birdsong caught the only touchdown pass on one of his two receptions for 25 yards.
Wimberley’s undefeated regular season is on the line next week on the road against Austin Achieve (2-7, 0-4). The game starts at 7:30 p.m.
