By Chris Moore | PANews.com
Published 5:06 pm Thursday, October 11, 2018
PORT NECHES — In a first-round playoff matchup last season, the Port Neches-Groves Indians and the Crosby Cougars had a shootout at Baytown’s Stallworth Stadium that ended with a 72-69 win for PNG.
After a game that featured 1,443 yards of combined total offense between the two teams (PNG had 805 and Crosby had 638), the Indian defense hopes the game is less exciting.
“Last year, it was wild and crazy,” head coach Brandon Faircloth said. “It’s hard to put into words when the score is 72-69 in the first round of the playoffs. Crosby has a great team. They have a great staff and great players. They’ll be a test for us. They are 5-0 on the year, undefeated in district. We have our work cut out for us.”Both teams bring into the game the district’s top-ranked offenses. Crosby’s rushing attack leads the first-ranked offense with 1,521 rushing yards on the season.
Crosby running back Zach Simon leads the district in carries (104) and touchdowns (10) and is second in rushing yards with 639. Noel Wright is eighth in the district in rushing yards with 384 yards to go along with four touchdowns.
“The guys have to play hard,” PNG defensive coordinator Dustin Templin said. “Give credit to Crosby. They are really good on both sides of the ball. They are a high-tempo, explosive offense. We’ve got to a much better job of containing that explosiveness and limiting those explosive plays.”
Last week, the Indians played another top-tiered rushing attack in Vidor.
“(Vidor) runs the ball a lot,” Templin said. “It is a different style of running for Crosby. They’re still going to run it at us a bunch and throw it a little more than Vidor.”
Crosby lost their starting quarterback Jaiden Howard for the season two weeks ago against Vidor with a torn ACL, according to the Baytown Sun. Howard was a double threat for the Cougars, as he is ranked 11th in the district in rushing yards even after not playing the last two games.
Junior quarterback Kobe Coker took over for the injured Howard and has four touchdowns and three interceptions to go along with 433 yards.
PNG’s and Crosby’s defenses rank sixth and seventh in the district, respectively and are only separated by 4 yards.
Both teams are the only teams in the district to give up over 1,000 yards on the ground.
One of the defenders tasked with slowing the Crosby offense is senior defensive lineman David Minter, who said the Cougar offense will be a challenge that the defense is ready to take on.
“We’ve been hearing form our coaches that (the Crosby coaches) have been coaching ‘revenge,’ because we beat them last year,” Minter said. “They’re ready to go and they’re going to come at us strong, but we’re prepared to go back at them and give them their first loss.”
Minter said the key to success on defense Friday is about 1/11. The fraction refers to each individual on the 11-person defense.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone does as long as we do our job,” Minter said. “We just have to come together and get done what we need to get done.”
Kick off is set for 7:30 at Cougar Stadium in Crosby.
PNG (3-2, 2-0) at Crosby (5-0, 2-0)
• 12-5A-II football; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Cougar Stadium, 14703 FM 2100 Rd., Crosby; KCOL-FM 92.5
