THOUGHTS FROM THE STATE TOURNAMENT AND ON THE SEASON

The State Tournament Board of Directors tries to put teams from around the state in each pool to provide the players a chance to compete against teams that they might not normally see in competition 7 on 7 or in football. It is a "random" drawing so some years the pool is more competitive than others recognizing that ALL of the teams where good enough to qualify along the way. It is important to recognize that just "getting there" is a real accomplishment. Teams like Southlake, Austin Westlake and Arlington's own Martin and Bowie high schools tried but did not succeed in qualifying this season. This year Lamar was placed in a pool with San Antonio Oconnor (SA area), Hutto (Austin Area) and Manvel (Houston area). All three of these teams had a player that was selected as the Pre-Season District POY on either offense or defense. There were a number of Division 1 recruits on these teams, particularly on the Manvel team. So we knew we had our work cut out for us! 

We played about as well as we can play for the first half of the Hutto game opening up a 34-13 lead. They fought back and made it closer but we stayed ahead the whole game. In the 2nd game against SAC we played a complete game and won by 17. So going into the 3rd game 2-0 we knew we had accomplished our goal of making it into the championship bracket on Saturday as we could finish no worse than 2-1 or 2nd in the pool. Whether it was that knowledge or the heat or a combination thereof we "ran out of gas" in the Manvel game and were beaten pretty soundly. Still 2-1 in this pool was a good day's work!

To give you some further evidence of the talent we played against Friday, on Saturday Hutto and SAC played in the consolation bracket tournament. In many ways this is a hard thing to do because you are really playing for pride as you cannot win the 7 on 7 state championship. This 32 team tournament requires winning 4 games in a row on Saturday to get to the finals. Well guess who wins 4 games each? That's right Hutto beat SAC in the consolation finals! What this tells me is those kids are mentally tough and have a lot of pride. Our first game on Saturday was against Waxahatchie. We beat them 28-26 to qualify earlier in the year so we knew they were a very good team. They played at another level during the state tournament, beating us and three more excellent teams to reach the State Finals. They lost a heartbreaker, going for two points at the end and missing to lose to Lake Travis by one point. So literally 3 of the teams we played last week made it to the final 4 spots!

Although going out early on Saturday is tough it does help to know you were playing and competing against other quality teams. The 2017 edition of the Viking 7 on 7 had an outstanding year finishing 17-6. They competed hard; love each other and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be a good team in the summer and now I am sure they will do the same in the fall. 

Super job again this season by our assistant coaches all of whom were Vikings.

THANKS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE YOUR COACHES AND CONGRATS AGAIN ON JOINING THE "ALWAYS QUALIFIED CLUB"  VFND AND "20/20"
Jim Poynter