Published: November 18, 2008 12:06 pm         

Who’s left? Yellowjackets!

Kemp comes from horrendous 0-3 start to bi-district champions

And then there was Kemp.

Who?

The Kemp Yellowjackets, that’s who.

Take another look. This team is one of only 32 Class 3A Texas football teams still standing in this year’s 2008 state playoffs.

Make that, the only lake area football team, still standing.

Granted, the Yellow Jackets were soundly beaten by both Mabank and Eustace this season, but Coach Gregg Anderson’s mistake-prone team of September and early October has since proven, they were only beginning to fight.

Since then, the Jackets have won six of their last eight games, and last Friday night in the Metroplex, they became bi-district champions by holding off defending Class 2A state champion, Farmersville, for a dramatic 24-21 victory.

Eustace’s defensive unit, held together by Band Aids in its bi-district contest, couldn’t outscore Nevada Community in Richardson,and fell 60-48, ending the Dogs first playoff season in 11 years, in disappointment.

Mabank had failed to get out of District 15-4A a week earlier, ending its season then.



THE JACKETS TURNAROUND SEASON:

The irony of the Jackets surviving this long, is not lost on Kemp’s players, fans and coaches.

These folks are having a ball going into Friday night’s game against Pleasant Grove of Texarkana in an area-round showdown in Marshall Friday night.

Can the Jackets’ actually make it to the Sweet 16?

Don’t bet against these guys with the stingers.

And Yellow Jacket fans? “They still haven’t stopped celebrating.

As for the players, well, they’re just now learning how much fun this winning stuff can be.

Even if it won’t mean a thing come Friday night in Marshal when Kemp plays Texarkana Pleasant Grove.

“They (the Jackets) went out and beat a really good football team, and we’re still playing,” said a happy Kemp coach, Gregg Anderson, earlier this week.

“I knew we had the potential. It was just a matter of those kids working, believing and coming together,” he said.

Remember, this is the team that started the season 0-3; the team that self-destructed every other play; the team that simply refused to win.

So what happened?

“We just let them know, that’s not the kind of team we were going to be,” said Anderson. “We were going to fix the mistakes and get better. We just kept preaching until they believed.”

The Jackets have grown up, and they have grown up fast.

“Our first win was against Emory Rains and we were able to come from behind to win, 24-21. Then we went to Palmer the next week and scored 60 points,” Anderson said.

“Those two games gave us a lot of confidence.”

They’ll need every bit of that maturity, leadership and confidence, Friday night, according to Anderson.

Texarkana Pleasant Grove is 8-2. The Hawks lost their last two district games after starting 8-0, but they’ve got speed to burn, and that could be a problem.

“They have a good football team,” Anderson said. “They’ve got a little more speed than anybody we’ve seen all year.”

But Anderson gives a lot of credit for his team’s turnaround to senior leadership.

“Josh (Carr) is our leader,” he said. “He’s not a vocal leader. It’s more like “I’m doing it. You guys come with me,” Anderson said.

Since fumbling the ball away three times in a disastrous performance against Mabank, Carr has stepped it up and now has over 1,200 yards rushing.

His sidekick is Korey Henderson, another senior, who has gained 892 yards on about half the number of carries as Carr.

“They’re trying to take Josh away in the middle, so somebody had to step up,” Anderson said.

That somebody has been Henderson. At times against Farmersville last Friday, he looked almost shocked to find so much real estate in front of him on the outside.

But he followed his blocking for huge gains all night long.

Henderson and the late-blooming Wesley Kerr have put opposing defenses in the position of “choosing their poison.”

Take Kerr and Henderson away, and Carr kills teams up the middle.

Farmersville seemed helpless to stop the Jackets inside or outside.

And the key to making it all happen, has been the quarterbacking of Jeremy Quick, whose reading of the defenses and running and occasional passing abilities have made the Kemp offense tough to stop.

Because of him, a team that couldn’t execute, is executing smoothly now.

“He’s done a great job,” said Anderson.

And, of course, there’s senior wide receiver and defensive back, James Trimm.

Trimm is the leading receiver on a team that doesn’t throw a lot. Defensively, well, he’s the guy who nailed the lid on Farmersville’s season, last Friday with his clutch interception that would have put the Fightin’ Farmers at the 16 of Kemp with 1:02 left.

“He’s done such a good job in the secondary,” Anderson said.

The second-year Kemp coach whose team suffered through a 1-9 season last fall, was able to tell his team this last Friday night:

“There are only 32 football teams left, and all 32 are good football teams.

“And we’re one of those 32.”



DOGS MADE BIG IMPROVEMENTS:

The Eustace Bulldogs finished with a losing record, but only if you count the playoff loss to Nevada Community last Friday night in Richardson.

That loss was a 60-48 track meet, and Coach Doug Wendel’s Dogs, minus several starters due to injuries, wound up on the short end of that score.

So they finish at 5-6.

It, at least, looked good for a while as the Dogs rolled up a 20-6 first-quarter lead.

But it eventually became obvious, they had no chance of stopping Nevada’s high-powered offensive attack — an attack that produced more than 500 yards of rushing.

While that wasn’t good by any coach’s standards of defense, the Dogs 48 points proved once again, they have a dominant offensive line and enough game breakers to stay in most games.

But the loss of Shawn Baldwin last week to a knee injury, not only hurt the Dogs offense because of his consistent inside power game, it also hurt the team defensively, because the Dogs were on the field, too much.

And that resulted in way too many points being given up.

“Defensively, we just missed tackles. We’ll be better next year,” Wendel promised.

Offensively, well, the second year coach can hardly wait for next season to begin.

“I think Compton (Chris) played a fantastic game, reading, and running hard,” he said of his junior quarterback. “He lowered his shoulder and broke a lot of tackles.

“And he had a few throws, one long one to Keeling, one to Justin Hall and one to Trevan Johnson.

To become the type of program Wendel has been trying to build the last two years, the key for Eustace comes right now.

“Our whole program’s success is based on our off-season program,” he said.

For us to win, we’ve got to continue to build depth, leadership, strength and speed,” said Wendel.

That leadership will have to come from players like Owen Babcock, a junior center, Chris Compton, and JoJo Bradburn, who Wendel says has natural leadership skills.

Also Cord Bailey should be a leader, and Justin Calhoun has a chance to be one, also, on what should be a senior-laden team with losts of experience.

For leadership, Wendel also mentioned Zach Stokes and Tanner Thompson, both of whom will be seniors.

Baldwin, because of his knee injury, is still a question mark for next season.

If he has a torn ACL, as Wendel believes he does (he finds out any day now), it’ll take most of a year for Baldwin to rehabilitate it.

Since Eustace’s offense calls for straight-ahead, power running, without a lot of cutting for it’s fullbacks.

So Wendel think, if his star runner does his rehab work religiously, he can be almost as good next year as he was this past season.

As for as his team’s progress for the last two season’s he’s been head coach at Eustace, Wendel reels off a laundry list of measuring guages:

•“We beat Quitman, a team we lost to by 35 points a year earlier, 60-25;

• “We Played edgewood to within two.;

• “We had a three-game winning streak in district. It’s the first time in a long time that’s happened around here;

• “We made the playoffs;

• “We cut our penalties and turnovers in half from the year before.”

And one more thing. Quietly, toward the end of the season, a former Dallas player became eligible and showed signs of being one of this team’s top athletes next season.

That would be JoJo Bradburn, who should contribute significantly as a running back and in the defensive secondary, next season.

     

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