If you have already bought your season tickets and attended the first game last Friday Night against Bartlesville, you’ve already got your moneys worth. The Zebras won the game 35-33 that was sealed by a late interception by Andrew Hancock. But before the victory formation to take one last knee, there was a lot of action that got us to this point.
The game started with a run play to the left for a gain of zero yards. I guess coach Grimett saw something the rest of us did not and called a second run play to the left and boy was he right. On this play quarterback Brad Hoisington takes the ball and goes to the house on an 80-yard touchdown run. That was not the end of the big plays for the Zebras. There was one long run after another as the Zebras tallied up 334 yards rushing. When your offensive line owns the line of scrimmage and you run the ball like we did, it will be hard to beat us.
Bartlesville would not go away through this entire game, matching our big plays but we had more than them. When I asked defensive coordinator Billy Willard what his thoughts were about the defensive performance he responded with “the bottom line is we gave up too many big plays. If you take away 3 of those huge plays we run away with the game.” He also said “I know a lot of people might be worried about our defense, but I am not. It was not near as bad as it seemed. Things like this always happen during the first game of the season. We will fix the big play problem and continue moving toward district play.”
In the end we came away with a close win, and the Zebras had four players who helped make this two-point victory lean in our favor. So, congrats to the Zebras on their week one win and to the week one Players of the Week. Offensive player Brad Hoisington. Brad is absolutely electric with the ball in his hands. JV player of the week Kellen Gaede. Kellen has been working as hard as anyone preparing the varsity team for battle, and moving himself into a position where you might hear his number called on a Friday night. Next is special teams’ player of the week Abby Tietz. Abby is the Zebras field goal kicker and she is automatic going 5 for 5 on Friday. Abby never misses and I believe is one of the most accurate kickers in our district. Last is defensive player of the week Mikey Robertson. Mikey got this award because he was literally all over the field on Friday. It did not matter if he was locking down a receiver or coming downhill and making a tackle. Mikey was a man on a mission this week and hopefully he can keep it going.
What a great first week of the season and now the Zebras go on the road to cross town rival Oologah. Look forward to seeing everyone out there as we get another W against the Mustangs.