By Ronnie Hughes

Leader Correspondent

 

BRIDGE CITY — Bridge City Cardinal football has seen its struggles for a few years prior to their stellar 2015 season.

After a two-season hiatus from the postseason, the Cardinals found themselves in the playoffs last season under new head coach Dwayne Dubois. Returning a slew of starters from last season’s young squad ,they hope to break out of the bidistrict round for the first time since 2005.

The Cardinals will get back a healthy Patrick Morris, who missed the final five games of 2015 due to a hamstring injury. Morris will play both sides of the ball this season and looks to help spark the offense. Through six games he garnered just over 500 yards in 2015. This season he will see his first work on defense, playing the role of rover in the defensive backfield. His leadership, intensity and open field tackling will add to an already feisty Cardinal defense that returns seven starters. The heavy non-district matchups against playoff teams Hamshire-Fannett, North Forest, WO-S and Newton is reason alone to know your role on defense and Morris will have a lot of field to cover as he aims to lead the team in tackles.

“I am on varsity for a reason so I got to go out and just play my game,” said Morris. “I will make the stops and one thing I won’t let happen is let anyone outwork me.”

Senior Joseph Adams returns for his third year on varsity to anchor the Cardinal offensive line at strong side tackle. The Cardinals were overlooked last season, but their high-octane offense shocked everyone while giving them a 4-1 record through five games to start the season and then battled hard for the 10-4A title.

Adams’ presence on the offensive line was key in games versus LC-M when they put up 62 points along with a big road win at Huffman, and despite a loss, they put up 42 points on a tough Silsbee team, that won the 10-4A title. The All-District lineman spent his summer days working on footwork and improving on his explosiveness off the ball. He will be the first to tell you that everyone on the team is replaceable so he prides himself on his work ethic.

“I know my job is to stay low and drive,” said Adams. “We pay attention in practice and execute, if we continue to do that, come game day we’re going to be tough to stop. We’ve got a great senior class and we’ve set our goals high. We have the potential and drive to do some really good things this year.”

Adams will also see more extended time along the defensive front as well this year.

Adams is just one of five Cardinal linemen that will be starting games for the third year. The stout line also includes the likes of Nick Menard, Alex Lara, Zayne Trahan and Chase Boneau.

They will all look to open holes for a deep backfield that will include Morris, quarterback Byron Trahan and backs Cayce Draper, who had over 1,2000 yards last season, Hunter Denton and Max Baker.