GRAPEVINE STATE QUALIFIER

On Saturday the Vikes traveled to Grapevine for the 2nd of 6 State Qualifying tournaments.

In game 1 the Vikes defeated the Richland Rebels 42-21. On a sad note, a Richland player broke his leg for the 3rd time in his young career. The Vikes said a prayer for him during the halt in play.

 

In game 2 the Vikes spotted Mesquite Horn an 11 point 1/2 time lead as Horn had the ball one more possession and a Lamar TD was waived off by a 4-second call. The 2nd half was a “home run derby” as both teams scored at will on deep balls. Lamar was stopped just short of the game winning TD falling 46-42. We also had an apparent "pick six" waived off by an official.

 

In the final game the Vikes faced Frisco Heritage and came away with a 48-31 victory. For the day the Vikes averaged over 45 ppg while giving up 32 ppg a 13 ppg differential. Horn was the Pool winner by virtue of their “head to head” win over the Vikes. Comparatively the Vikes beat Heritage by 17 while Horn beat Heritage by 1. Horn lost to Richland and the Vikes won by 21! Mesquite won the qualifying round and thus qualified for the state tournament.

Although the Vikes didn’t qualify, we are definitely on the right track. We will continue to work on getting a minimum of “2 stops per half” defensively which we did in 2 of 3 games Saturday. We also must be more consistent on offense particularly in the 1st half of games.

The overall effort was excellent and I look forward to our 3 rd SQT next Saturday in Bedford! VFND

THOUGHTS AFTER FIRST TOURNAMENT AND LOOKING FORWARD

Last week was quite a week for Viking football athletics in general with the NFL draft; regional track competition and the first 7 on 7 state qualifier!

We knew the first state qualifying tournament last Saturday (4/28/18) would be a fun event for the players as it was held at the Cowboys Star Center in Frisco. Our pool games were on the Cowboys turf practice field and it was a fast track on a beautiful day. Although we did not see any Cowboy players some or our guys did spot the Cowboy cheerleaders boarding their bus to Arlington to participate in the last rounds of the NFL draft event at Cowboy Stadium.

Because we have some great athletes on our team we also knew we might "lose" some of them to the "regional" track meet. Well, we had 5 of our fastest guys qualify in the area round which is just outstanding! So along with a couple of injuries we were short at least 6 starters from our 7 on 7 team last Saturday.

With so many key contributors out we asked the remaining players to step up and play literally wherever we asked them to play. Several guys played defense with no experience on that side of the ball since grade school! We played with very good effort but at the end of the day we just did not have enough resources to call on to win our pool and advance to the qualifying round. The kids and coaches were disappointed because we do not take losing easily; there is a lot of Viking Pride in our 7 on 7 program. I told them and their families to not get down at all as it is truly "pre-season" and going forward we will have our whole team with which to compete.

The next two Saturdays we have a couple of our most important practices of the season. For the first time this spring we should have ALL of our players there. This will let us get reps as units and get our communication and schemes worked out and all of our plays installed. On 5/19 our next State Qualifying Tournament will be in Grapevine and I expect us to be at full speed and ready to COMPETE!