The Wimberley Texans football team battled the La Vernia Bears in the final scrimmage of the year as they now look to the regular season opener against rival Canyon Lake.
The theme of this week’s practices was to improve on last week, which the team responded to well.
“The first day it got really hot, and we didn’t have a good workout,” Warren said. “But we followed up the next with a really good workout. It’s what we told them that if you have a bad workout, you have to follow it up with a good one. You look at the progress we made from last week to this week, and we made a really big jump, which you could make from last week’s scrimmage. It’s a process, and you don’t expect to be perfect in these scrimmages or even in these early games but we are going to try to improve and get better.”
The highly touted Code Red defense was able to hold up to their moniker as they held La Vernia to zero points during the team scrimmages and during the live quarter.
“We pride ourselves on playing Code Red defense,” Warren said. “It’s about being physical, and being fast. I thought we played good defense again tonight where we didn’t give up any big plays, and we constantly put pressure on their quarterback. I like where we are with that, so we just have to continually get better.”
The mantra of the Code Red defense has been a calling card for all Texan football players, which has been instilled in them since they started in junior high school.
For this year’s team, the Code Red defense has a chance to etch their name in the Wimberley history books as one of the best defenses in school history.
“It’s something that we teach our kids,” Warren said. “We talk about playing Code Red defense at the start of 7th grade, and we stress to them what that is and how you play it. It really is a mindset that the kids take pride in being a great defensive team. It is important to them that they study, work hard, practice hard, and all of those things then on Friday night they get to throw it out there to put it on display. This defense, even though you may not know any of those names, has the makings of being a very good defense.”
On the offensive side of the ball, the Texans were able to clean up some of their mistakes and translate them on
the field against La Vernia.
The result was a couple of scores for the Texans in the team vs team part of the scrimmage followed by winning the live scrimmage 7-0.
“One thing you gotta do is learn from your mistakes,” Warren said. “It’s the mark of a good football team. We had way too many penalties last week and those are going to get called especially being early in the season. So you talk to your kiddos about them, stress them, and work on it in practice… Once again, it is about continually building, continuing to get better, working on the things that need to be improved on, and just going to work. These kids take it to heart, and they just go to work, get after it and try to be better.”
The quarterback battle between Cody Stoever and Lane Hennessee continues to rage on for the Texans as both continue to show their improvements leading to the possibility of both seeing playing time during the regular season.
“I thought both of them had flashes of really good play and both had flashes of not really good play,” Warren said. “I think both of them have continued to improve. Who knows when we make a decision for this week and just roll with either one of them, or we may play both of them. It’s something that we will take a look at on who is really moving the chains, who gets in there and leads the team, and who is able to move the ball down the field. I’m not opposed to playing both of them if that is what it takes to be our best… Both are very capable of doing exactly what they are asking them to do. They don’t have to win games but just execute the offense. They are both getting better at that.”
For the regular season opener, the Wimberley Texans will square off with the Canyon Lake Hawks in the “Battle of the Backbone.”
This will be the 15th overall meeting between the schools since 2008 with Wimberley leading the series at 11-3.
This year’s game will be a part of the Peanut Butter Bowl series where both teams during the week try to donate jars of peanut butter to the local food pantries in order to feed food insecure kids in the area.
The Canyon Lake-Wimberley game will be one of 34 games participating in the event.
To learn more about the Peanut Butter Bowl, to go www.peanutbutterbowl.com.
Lane Hennessee looks for a open receiver during the team vs team part of the scrimmage against La Vernia.
