Mustangs kick off district vs. Canyon Lake
Marble Falls senior fullback Jasael Ruiz darts to the left side of the field after seeing open space in the Mustangs' road loss to the Fredericksburg Battlin’ Billies on Sept. 23. Staff photo by Nathan Bush
Coming off a bye week after a 23-0 shutout loss to Fredericksburg in their final non-district game, the Marble Falls Mustangs (2-3) hope to right the ship in their first district contest, a road game against the Canyon Lake Hawks (1-3) on Friday, Oct. 7. The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
You can listen to it live on KBEY 103.9 FM Radio Picayune, at KBEYFM.com, or via the free KBEY app starting with a 7 p.m. pregame show.
In an interview with KBEY, Marble Falls head coach Brian Herman talked about his team’s mindset heading into district.
“We are ready to flush the first five (games) and move on to the games that really matter,” he said.
The non-district contests showed which players can help Marble Falls going forward and which aren’t quite ready for the big stage, Herman said.
“It’s kind of like playing solitaire,” he explained. “You start out with 52 cards, and, for some reason, in the first five games, we’ve lost a whole suit. We’re having to reshuffle the deck and try to figure out how to play solitaire without a whole set of clubs.”
As the Mustangs prepared for their district opener, Herman held a leadership meeting to talk about the team’s circumstances.
“I wrote the current season standings on the board,” he said. “There’s no leader at this point. Everyone is 0-0. Nobody has played a game. Nobody has a district win or a district loss.”
Before the recent University Interscholastic League realignments, Marble Falls was the only team in its district to run the Slot-T offense, which is centered on ball control and the running game. New district foe Canyon Lake has been utilizing the Slot-T for years. However, it appears the Hawks have changed things up a bit.
“Last year, they were probably 70-30 (percent) Slot-T and mixed in some other stuff,” Herman said. “(This year), they’re closer to 50-50. They’re mixing it up. They’re doing some slot and doing some shotgun spread stuff. It will be interesting.”
Herman’s team is focused on two Canyon Lake players: seniors Hunter Anderson and Helijah Johnson.
“They’ve got a really good quarterback (Anderson) that I think they’re trying to feature,” the coach said. “They’ve also got a really good — in our system we would call him a halfback, they may call him an H-back because they’re using him in a spread system — but he’s (Johnson) a big load. He’s about six-one, 200 pounds, and he can run and he’s a bully.”
Johnson is also a devastating outside linebacker and could cause issues for the Mustangs on both sides of the ball.
While playing a team with two separate offensive schemes can be a challenge, Herman doesn’t seem concerned.
“In my opinion, when you do a little bit of everything, I don’t know how good you can be at either one,” he said. “I think sometimes when you do that, you confuse the kids.”
Marble Falls fans attending the game should be aware that Hawk Stadium, 8555 FM 32 in Fischer, has a clear bag policy and tickets must be purchased online.
