By Caleb Adams

Leader Correspondent

LITTLE CYPRESS — The Woodville Eagles ventured to Little Cypress-Mauriceville (0-1) and walked away with a 28-14 victory over the Battlin’ Bears.

Take a deep breathe, listen closely, the atmosphere of the Friday night lights shinning on Southeast Texas and some sense of the normalcy has returned to Orange County after Hurricane Harvey. Finally the football season has come and with that, the hopes to have an improved season by the Bears and another postseason berth as the Bears played their first game of the year while the Eagles (1-1) already had a game under their belts.

This was the season opener for the Bears who had only a few days of practice in the last week and a half.  The lack of practice for the team because of the hurricane was evident with both sides of the ball for the Bears at times.

The Battlin’ Bears opened up the season with a strong drive to put them up early in the first quarter. Ethan McCollum and Christopher Winters chewed up the bulk of the drive on the ground starting from their own 41. McCollum would drop back and complete a long pass for 39 yards to Dameon Morris. The second completion on the drive also went to Morris and he ran it in from eight yards out for the first touchdown of the game with 6:09 left in the first quarter.

The Eagles would respond on their first successful drive of the night. The entire drive was driven by the run game The running back core’s ability to switch up the runners with seven unique players running the ball on the drive. The offense would cap it off a long 21-yard run by running back David Whitehead, with the PAT going through by Tyler Greer as the Eagles take the lead 7-6 with 7:24 left in the second quarter.

The Bears took the lead back with a long six-minute drive that started from their own 38. Winters had eight runs on the drive for 35 yards total. J’Lon Douglas picked up towards the end of the drive and pushed the touchdown in for the Bears from three yards out. The Bears would go for two and Douglas would punch that one in as well as LC-M would take a 14-7 lead with 1:19 left in the first half.

With just a minute left on the clock in the first half the Eagles would not waste much time to answer the Bears touchdown. With just three plays the Eagles covered 54 yards. Damicheal Brooks and C.J. Wooten would both have long 20-plus yard runs to finish off the drive. Wooten ran in from 29 yards for the touchdown. Zach Martin ran in the two-point conversion and the Eagles took a one-point lead, up 15-14 with 46 seconds on the clock.

Neither team was able to convert on offense throughout the third quarter but the Eagles found success in the middle of the fourth quarter for a big touchdown. Reese Shaw would complete his first pass of the game to receiver Tyren Beatty for 20 on the march. That pass would setup the run game and Brooks nailed it in from five yards out. The Eagles would not convert on the two-point conversion leaving the score at 21-14 for the Eagles with 8:30 left in the game.

Woodville would get the ball with about six minutes left on the clock from their own 35. With 13 run plays the Eagles drained the clock to 1:19 and tacked on a score with a Zach Martin 11-yard run. Greer would make the PAT and the final score would be 28-14.

The Bears start the season 0-1, but look to bounce back next week against the Orangefield Bobcats on the road.

 

Woodville 28, LC-M 14

1^st        2^nd                   3^rd                    4^th                    Final

LCM            6            8                      0                      0          –           14

WVL               0          15                    6                      7          –           28

 

LCM               WVL

First downs        12                              18

Rushes-yards    37-79                    56-304

Passing                141                           20

Comp-Att-Int     12-16-1                 1-1-0

Fumbles-Lost       3-1       0-0

Penalties-yards   3-25              2-10

 

Individual Statistics

Rushing: LCM, Christopher Winters 17-91, Ethan MCcollum 13—38, J’Lon Douglas 6-26, ; WVL, Reese Shaw 5-12, Damicheal Brooks 23-146, Zach Martin 13-83, Reed Weaver 2-4, CJ Wooten 5-36, David Whitehead 2-26

 

Passing: LCM, Ethan MCcollum 12-15-1 141, Brayden Babineaux 0-1-0 00; WVL, Reese Shaw , 1-1-0 20

 

Receiving: LCM, Dameon Morris 7-123, Christopher Winters 2—16, Katon Brown 3-29, Adams Pope 1-5; WVL, Tyren Beatty 1-20,